


Lambs to the Slaughter

by Zaxal



Series: Lambs To The Slaughter: A Good Omens Reverse AU [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Slow Burn (Good Omens), Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Angel Crowley (Good Omens), Angst, Book Elements, Demon Aziraphale (Good Omens), Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Happy Ending, Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), Hurt Aziraphale (Good Omens), Hurt Crowley (Good Omens), Making an Effort (Good Omens), Other, Show Elements, Suicide Attempt, Temporary Character Death, Unhealthy Relationships, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 23:28:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 30
Words: 124,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20804756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaxal/pseuds/Zaxal
Summary: An angel and a demon dance along the knife's edge of destruction together in an eternal waltz. The demon who had been Aziraphale and the angel who would be Crowley answer to powerful forces that care not for the individual cogs in their celestial machines. This will be their undoing.Or:Aziraphale is traumatized by Heaven and Hell. Crowley did nothing wrong. Heavy angst. Heed the warnings. Eventual happy ending; you just gotta trust me.Crowley appears in chapter 4.Currently on semi-hiatus.





	1. the garden.

### 4004 BC

The days passed in languid measure, marked not by happenings but by the steady, unerring rise of the sun. He greeted it every day as he had been made to.

He could still feel the first words spoken to him, deep in the marrow of his corporeal form. “Aziraphale,” They said, words warm and soft — the most wonderful music Aziraphale would ever hear. “Angel of the Eastern Gate. Angel of the Morning.”

There hadn’t been a Gate yet to guard nor suns or horizons to create mornings with. He hadn’t understood, but he had accepted that one day, he would. The same breath that had created him had branded him with a grand and future purpose. The knowledge had kept him calm during the Rebellion and in the ensuing war. He could not die, not when he had yet to do what God had created him for.

He had seen the first mornings, the soft, rosy dawns that crested over the planet that They called Earth. If he flew west, he could stay in that time forever, the rising sun at his back and the night fleeing before him.

That tumultuous time — the Rebellion and the war, not the flying about as he pleased — had passed, and he had been given his post, a flaming sword, and rules.

Keep Their creations in Eden. Keep anything from the outside from entering — Aziraphale could only assume that this meant demons though they too had been created by God. And, finally, do not eat from the Tree of Knowledge. Of the three rules, that one seemed the strangest to him. Aziraphale knew Good and Evil already, and though angels weren’t necessarily made to eat, they had been given a sense of taste and smell with their corporeal forms. Eating, in general, _was_ allowed.

Then, he had seen Adam and Eve. And Aziraphale had understood. These beautiful creatures, the most beloved of Their creations — Aziraphale was meant to be setting an example for them. They had free will. They could _choose_ to eat from the Tree (even if they weren’t supposed to) and it would be easier for them to understand if they didn’t see wayward angels snacking from its branches.

Not that they could see him. He supposed that it would interfere with the idea of free will if they knew they were being watched by a member of the Heavenly Host.

Of course Aziraphale watched them. So long as he stayed near the eastern wall, he hadn’t really strayed from his post, and what lay inside the Garden was much more interesting than the vast desert beyond it. 

He watched as the delightful things named animals big and small. There was such a power in names; Aziraphale hoped they knew that (and he rather supposed they did once he heard Adam call one of the big fellows with the long nose and the large ears ‘elephant’ and Aziraphale hadn’t been able to fathom them being called anything else). He watched as they discovered food, combined taste with taste, some that they found pleasing and some that they wrinkled their noses at and agreed not to do again (Aziraphale often followed their lead, surprised at the intuition that led them to _combine_ different elements to create something new). He watched as they discovered something that, at first, looked to be quite distressing for them both until Aziraphale felt Adam’s essence flow into Eve and, over a period of days, start to change into something else altogether.

Clever, resourceful, _wonderful_ things — giving reports on human ingenuity wasn’t part of his job description, but it was a task he would gladly choose for himself, should the opportunity arise. But if everything continued as it had so far, he didn’t know when he’d be reporting in to Heaven next.

Surely, They could see how splendid Their creations were. Surely, They were pleased.

Aziraphale always returned to the top of the wall as the silent, star-laden night gave way to the stirrings of birdsong and the dawn. It felt like the proper thing to do. He unfurled his magnificent wings, golden light catching in the white feathers, glinting and gleaming, making him seem to glow even brighter than usual. Though, on the off chance that the humans could see him, he refrained from showing the full glory of his true form. Wouldn’t want to frighten the poor dears.

So the days went, and Aziraphale went with them, obedient and vigilant against the dark.

After so long — he hadn’t bothered to count the days, and why should he? — of course he would know when something had changed in his Garden. One day, just as the sun crested the horizon, Aziraphale became aware of a presence so strong that it left a taste in the back of his mouth. As if he’d taken the fire from his blade into his mouth and been forced to give it a name, it tasted like ‘burning’.

Aziraphale reluctantly turned from the sun, brandishing his weapon as he glared down in the harsh shadow cast by the wall. A shape writhed in the dark, and a pair of eyes flashed at him, gleaming with hellfire. Aziraphale leaped from the wall, wings flared as he brought the sword between him and the shadowy coils. Even by the light of the fire, the serpent refused to be illuminated, scales dark, but the eyes — they held on to Aziraphale without blinking.

For the first time in his life, he felt a cold stab of fear in his gut, and as if the serpent felt it, he wove forward, baring venomous fangs as both a warning and a threat. Aziraphale stumbled backwards, bare feet sinking into dewy grass and soft mud.

“This is the stock of angels these days,” the serpent hissed, very obviously pleased with himself as Aziraphale failed to act. “I suppose all the worthwhile ones Fell.”

“Begone, fiend,” Aziraphale said, his voice softer, less commanding than he’d hoped for.

“Why? I helped Them create this world; why shouldn’t I be allowed to see it?”

“You may see it from beyond the walls,” Aziraphale said stiffly.

“Not very kind of you. Everything _interesting_ is in here.”

Aziraphale willed his legs to walk, his arms to strike. He’d fought in the war as he’d been commanded to. Demons had fallen at his blade, discorporated. He had been fearless.

But, then, he’d had the promise of a future, of a purpose not yet met.

He had seen to the Eastern Gate and to the Mornings as diligently as he could for the last, long number of days. There was no longer certainty that he would see them again.

He had to move. He had to — if not for his sake, then for God’s, for the _humans’_. This demon couldn’t be allowed to interfere, but right as Aziraphale had found his nerve, the serpent flashed forward, mouth opened and fangs _gleaming_ with the same sinister light as his eyes, and Aziraphale fell backwards, the sword thumping to the ground as the serpent stopped just short of him, looming ominously over him.

“Stay here, sweet Cherub,” the serpent hissed again. “At your post. After all, if Their precious humans are all they’ve been made out to be — they can resist a little nudge, can’t they?” He lowered his massive head almost to Aziraphale’s level, tongue flickering out, tasting his skin. “Have _faith_.”

“If you’re saying it, it can’t be the right thing to do.”

“It’s the right thing if you don’t want to find out how much my venom can hurt before you’re discorporated.” He nudged closer, scales sliding along Aziraphale’s cheek as he hissed in the angel’s ear. “Though, of course, if you wanted to be a coward, angel… One quick discorporation. Then you can’t be held responsible for anything I might get up to.”

The fact that it was a tempting offer was precisely why Aziraphale had to refuse. Had to, even though he couldn’t quite get his mouth to move, to tell the demon to shove off, to get out of his Garden before Aziraphale brought the full wrath of God down upon him.

With a hum that might have been a laugh, the serpent pulled away and began to slither off into Eden, unhindered. Aziraphale watched with wide eyes until the last of his many coils disappeared from sight, and, even then, he didn’t feel safe enough to stand. 

Perhaps, he thought, perhaps he _had _been bitten. Perhaps he was paralyzed by venom currently running through this form’s necessary veins. He couldn’t feel it slithering beneath his skin or the pain of a bite, but it made _sense_. Why else would his body disobey him? Why else would he lie here, frozen, while that _thing_ hunted the humans?

He said he was going to nudge them, but a demon couldn’t be trusted! Adam and Eve hadn’t known danger in the Garden; they didn’t know _how_ to defend themselves. And Eve? Eve carried within her the future of humanity itself. Aziraphale urged his body to _move_, the fear for them driving his heart to beat wildly in his chest. If he had been bitten, the venom would have spread all the faster, but as Aziraphale managed to stand, he knew the lie he’d been telling himself was no longer justified.

It was fine, he reasoned. Their Ineffable Plan — it must call for a demon to come. It must call for Aziraphale to fail precisely as he had so that the humans would be tested. All of this would be put to bed in short order as soon as the humans bested the demon, and everything would return to the way it had been, the way it was _meant_ to be.

He picked up his sword, the dance of divine flame drawing his attention.

Have faith. Even though it had come from the serpent’s tongue, it was the truth. All he had to do, now, was believe.

The shift in the atmosphere as the serpent had appeared was nothing compared to the one that followed. The air felt suddenly, unbearably heavy, and the clouds overhead — usually so puffy and white — began to quickly cluster and churn, turning bleaker by the minute. Wind whipped at his face, and Aziraphale reluctantly flew back to the top of the wall.

It was impossible to tell how long he had sat there uselessly. The sun was hidden behind an endless number of dark, stormy clouds. The wind tore at his robes, and his heart thumped in his ears as he reluctantly looked back into Eden.

The trees were shaking faster than the wind ought to be moving them save for one which stood still in the middle of the Garden.

It was not the Tree of Knowledge’s fault that the humans had failed its test. It had no reason to fear.

Beneath his feet, the wall cracked audibly, and Aziraphale watched as animals both great and small made for the opening, disappearing into the desert. He made no move to stop them.

This was by design. God had created the Garden, the Tree, the serpent (including the demon who inhabited it), and the humans, all while knowing — no, _planning_ — for the eventual failure of humanity.

Their will was ineffable. Even to a Cherub, created to serve Them, it couldn’t be understood.

But why build a Garden in the first place, if one intended to force the inhabitants to leave?

Why create something only to eventually destroy it?

And why should creatures, predestined to fail, be punished for doing as was intended?

In the distance, he could make out the forms of Adam and Eve, now wearing rudimentary clothing, rushing towards the hole in the wall. The Gate, Aziraphale supposed faintly.

Without quite thinking it through, Aziraphale walked off the edge of the wall, wings carrying him to the ground. He knew, the way all angels were meant to know right from wrong, that he had never been given the sword to defeat the serpent. It had been for this: the rapidly dropping temperature, the darkness created by the clouds, the humans going defenseless into a world that was no longer their haven. Aziraphale closed his eyes and made himself appear before them.

Adam and Eve both jolted away from him, and Aziraphale quickly soothed. “Oh, dear me. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

Both humans looked at the sword in his hand.

“Right, right, of course. Look: take this.” He extended the hand holding the sword, hilt out. “The sword will protect you, and the fire will keep you warm.” Adam’s hand slid tentatively along his own, fingers taking the weight of the sword as Aziraphale let go of it, pulling his hand back as if he’d been burned. “Take it and hurry. Don’t let the sun go down on you here.”

Aziraphale could feel their gratitude, and he quickly shook his head before Eve could speak. “Don’t thank me. Just go. Please.”

As the first raindrops began to fall, the humans exited Eden, and Aziraphale took his own first tentative steps outside to see them off.

The Gate had been made and used; all that remained was to patch up the hole in the wall before the Archangels came down and did it for him while scolding him for letting the wall be broken. For this very reason, he chose not to use a miracle, lest it be found out sooner rather than later. Brick by brick, he rebuilt it, the first rain pouring down on him through the night until it was again dawn.

For the first time, his back was to the sun as it rose, and he slid the last brick into place.

“Aziraphale.” Their presence hadn’t alighted on him so directly since They’d first given him his name, his titles, his duty. Aziraphale turned hurriedly around, pressing his back to the mended wall. “Angel of the Eastern Gate. Angel of the Morning.”

Though the sun was just rising, light cascaded down on him, blindingly bright. “Y— Yes, Lord?”

A soft sigh, almost chiding, “Where is the flaming sword I gave you, Aziraphale, to guard the Gate of Eden?”

They knew. Surely, They knew. And if They knew, it hardly made sense to lie about it.

The nagging worry had been growing all night, that he had done the wrong thing, even though it hadn’t felt at all wrong at the time.

Why would They wait until now to ask? Why would They ask at all?

Why?

“I gave it away.”

The light flickered overhead. “And why did you?”

Despite his misgivings, he continued as brightly as he could manage: “It was the right thing to do. They didn’t have any means with which to defend themselves, no way to keep warm, and I— if I wasn’t _meant_ to use the sword to guard them, I must have been meant to give it to them, so that they could guard themselves.”

At first, there was silence. Then, the unnerving quiet was broken by a feeling Aziraphale had never felt before and hoped never to feel again. After a lifetime of celestial harmonies created by angels whose purpose it was to sing, it was as if someone had reached into him and plucked the very first clashing notes. They jarred against one another in such discord that Aziraphale covered his ears to stop the noise.

If anything, blotting out the sound from the world only made him more aware of the growing cacophony, and his eyes turned widely skyward, into that blinding light that soon faded, looking away from him. It _ripped_ at his essence until it tore. The sand beneath his bare and burning feet began to slip away as a hole opened in the world. Stripped of Their love and Their grace, the Cherub Aziraphale began to Fall.

It would be forty years before the wretched creature would see the light of day again.


	2. the fall.

Before sulfur touched his wings, before the essence of his being was marred irrevocably and branded ‘demon’, he lost something much more precious. The name ‘Aziraphale’ was burned from his tongue and stricken from the makeup of the universe. The loss of identity cut through him sharper than any blade, one more agony added to the suffering of losing God’s love. Darkness swallowed him whole, and the Fallen Angel only knew he was conscious because of the searing heat that burned his corporeal form and the miracle that had been his creation.

Boiling sulfur didn’t compare to the agony of being forgotten and cast aside, but it came in a distant, commendable second.

The lake of fire swallowed evidence of his impact and pulled him deeper and deeper into its depths. Sulfur flooded his mouth and nose, burning his skin and wings and something else far below the surface of his frail body. He finally hit the bottom of the lake, wings and back cracking against the harsh stone, and, without any farther down to go, he began to float back to the surface. 

The Fallen Angel lurched out of the pool and collapsed onto the ground. A desperate, pained noise tore from his throat, a sob that seemed to echo into the endless abyss. His now-blackened wings tried to come up, to shield his trembling body from the pain that overwhelmed him. His left wing managed, but his right wing barely twitched forward before a sharp pain pinched from the wrist down to the joint that connected it to his back. Even when he allowed his wings to fall back, a deep ache remained, throbbing with what might have been a heartbeat.

He didn’t understand. He couldn’t. No angels had Fallen since the war had ended. He had never questioned; he’d had unwavering faith in God, in Their will, Their mercy, Their plan.

He still believed.

Pale eyes turned up to a dark expanse, body shaking more as he reached out a hand as if he could physically grab Their attention. “Please,” the Fallen whimpered. “Please—”

His tongue went numb, and the taste of iron filled his mouth. Prayer hadn’t been invented yet, but the universe itself knew that what he was doing was forbidden. Red seeped from the corners of his lips, and the next sob saw blood and tears mixing on the ground below him.

“There’s somethin’ out here.”

The rough voice caught him off guard, and the Fallen scrambled up and away, almost falling back into the pit of sulfur.

“Told you,” another voice said, and, in the dark, the Fallen could make out two shapes approaching. “I told you I saw something Fall.”

“What would be Falling?”

“Should be an angel. What else would it be?”

“War’s over; no one Falls anymore. Bet it was someone who snuck topside an’ got themself smited.”

The Fallen looked desperately for an escape, panic gripping tightly around his throat until he could no longer breathe. The angle at which the two demons approached him had pinned him between them and the pit with only the barest hope for escape between them.

Pulling his bare feet up beneath him, the Fallen lurched forward clumsily. His sole good wing beat at the air, trying to give him a burst of speed.

For a moment, he saw freedom beyond the demons. He could _run_. He could find a way back to Earth; he could beg for forgiveness, for any punishment except for _this_.

A sharp pain tore through his right, broken wing, wrenching him back painfully. The first demon held him up by it, snarling as the Fallen fought back. His good wing continued to beat, limbs flailing at his assailant in the hopes of freeing himself. The second demon finally caught his other wing, fingers so tight around the wrist that the bone _creaked_ under the pressure.

“I suggest you stop that,” the second said, silkily menacing. “And tell us your name.”

“I—” His heart thundered in his chest. How did he not know his name? Who was he? “I don’t have one.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, everyone’s got a name.”

“Barbus, look,” the first interrupted. With the same punishing grip warning him not to fight, Barbus moved under the black feathers of his wing, brow knit in confusion until he saw the Fallen’s face. The glowing, nearly-white ring of Barbus’s irises were, for a moment, all the Fallen could see of the demon in the dark. “You were _right_.”

“An angel,” Barbus breathed. The second thing the Fallen could see was the wide, malicious grin that split across his face, his teeth sharp and stained red. “You’re a long way from home, aren’t you?”

“Let me go,” the Fallen said, doing his best to summon some courage. It might have been convincing, if not for the tear tracts on his face and the way his voice pitched desperately. “I’ll make you wish They’d never created you.”

“Oh?” the first demon asked, her own hand tightening on the Fallen’s broken wing. He gritted his teeth, biting back a cry of pain. His knees went weak, but he stubbornly stayed standing. He could do this; he could fight them off, and They would see. He wasn’t like them; he wasn’t a _demon_! “How are you gonna do that all the way down here?”

The Fallen summoned all the righteous fury inside of him, feeling it gather around his body, seeping into his essence. Eyes blinked open on his exposed skin and his wings of which there were now an innumerable amount. He felt himself reach a before-unknown limit, unable to unfold himself further, as if his true form had been compressed, imprisoned, held back by walls that had never existed before. The multitude of eyes blinked, hot tears gathering and falling from each. The wheels that had once been made of fire, circling around him like the rings of a planet were now cold and fractured, tilted, and with every pass they made, shrapnel cut at him.

“Oh, a _Cherub_.” Barbus said. “Atrox, care to show him what we think of former Cherubs?”

There was a sickening sound as scales ripped through her skin, forming a pattern of diamonds as she bared her fangs which dripped with violet liquid.

Unlike the demon in the Garden, he didn’t get off with a warning.

Fire consumed him from the inside out, Atrox’s venom surging through his body with every frantic beat of his heart. The Fallen knees gave out. His true form slipped away to one that could curl in on itself while he desperately tried — and failed — to catch his breath between anguished sobs. Eventually, Barbus released his other wing, watching as it covered him in a vague attempt at protection and the other one pitifully twitched, fighting instinct and pain to try and follow its twin.

It seemed like hours later when finally, the pain began to peter off, and, shaking, the Fallen looked up at the two demons who had watched him this entire time. “Come on, Cherub,” Barbus said with wicked amusement. “Time to meet your new family.”

* * *

He wasn’t a demon. It was a cold sort of comfort, a truth that made his life infinitely worse the moment he realized it even as it gave him a spark of hope burning at the center of him. If he wasn’t a demon yet, then Hell wasn’t his home. Heaven wasn’t closed off to him. The Fallen held tightly onto it as a multitude of eyes turned towards him, the pressure of endless attention weighing heavily on his shoulders.

He wasn’t a demon, and he knew that the moment they stepped into Hell proper. The crater they’d climbed out of was simply where angels were banished to when they Fell and had been carved out by body after broken body.

He wasn’t a demon, and they all knew it, too. He could see it written on their faces, kin to the looks he’d seen in the Host when angels spoke about a comrade whose name had been stricken from the record. ‘Not one of us,’ it said with confusion, with surprise, with some level of malice that came from having an enemy defenseless before them.

“Wha’s that?” a voice asked, and a demon stepped closer, into the circle that had been vacated as he walked. They’d all moved out of the way, letting Barbus and Atrox bring their prisoner in without putting themselves in the line of fire.

Let them fear him. So long as there was fear, he could protect himself. He lifted his head, swallowing down his own anxiety in an attempt to look as imposing as he possibly could.

“It Fell,” Atrox announced with glee, one hand stroking down his injured wing which twitched feebly away from her. A sea of voices began to murmur, rippling outward as more and more demons heard the news. “So, if They didn’t want it, s’pose it belongs to _us_ now. Right, Barbus?”

“Should probably tell the Lord and the Kings,” he noted with a flap of his hand. “At some point. Few years, maybe.”

Years? He tried to hide the concern on his face. Had he been in Eden for years? Time was tricky; it had only come into being quite recently, and God had been simply _ineffable_ about the way it worked. He didn’t know if it was better or worse to know how long he had before he was brought before the rulers of Hell.

“Only a few?” Atrox asked.

“We’ll see.”

The demon who had stepped into the empty circle around him prowled closer. The Fallen’s good wing flared as he stared them down only to find his attention divided as more joined their bravest comrade.

“Didn’t think we’d have any more Fall,” the third demon mused.

“Me neither,” Atrox said. Her hand gripped his injured wing, and his nostrils flared as he attempted not to show pain, instead projecting his anger, his grief out at the demons before him. “You must’ve fucked up big time, huh?”

He gritted his teeth, refusing to speak even as she twisted his wing. Sharp pain surged up to his shoulder, and he fought the urge to fight back. She had those fangs, that venom, and the literal Legions of Hell waiting to fall on him like a pack of wolves. He had to maintain his composure; he had to be stronger.

A taloned hand dug into the meat of his other shoulder, wrenching him back so Barbus could could murmur in his ear. “You still think you’re better than us, don’t you?”

His lips curled in a sneer as he breathed out heavily through his nose.

All of those eyes on him, every single one probably thinking about how he deserved whatever cruelty they chose to inflict — naturally he retaliated. Naturally, he tried to carve some measure of safety out for himself. If it would make them hesitate to hurt him, it would be a step towards saving himself.

All at once, the broken wheels that orbited him manifested, the fragments cutting through both the Fallen and the demons holding him. His wings burst free in a flurry, creating more and more, beating furiously away at any who approached.

And they did. Of course they did.

Demons, unlike angels, didn’t have holier-than-thou bosses breathing down their necks, trying to ensure that everyone lower in the pecking order got along with one another in forced harmony. They had been brought together through blood and tears and shared pain. Seeing an angel had put them all on edge, and the moment he began fighting, they began fighting back. Hands wrenched at his wings. Teeth and fangs and claws raked over his skin, tearing through his white robes until they were stained irrevocably red. The wheels which cut them all were pulled and pushed, grabbed despite the way they sliced anything that tried to impede them.

Soon, his entire being had reached its limit, and it had been thoroughly caged. Trembling, he fell forward, held up by a multitude of demons which crowded around him, each eager to get a hand on the first shared enemy they’d had since the war ended with a tentative and uneasy hiatus.

“That was _stupid_, Cherub,” Barbus informed him. The Fallen was gratified to see that the demon was as cut up as him, bleeding, one pale eye closed due to a cut along the lid. Many of them wore proof of his attempts to fight back.

He managed a threadbare and exhausted smile, but before he could speak, Barbus snapped his fingers. In an instant, every wound on the demons holding him healed. “We can play this game all blessed day,” Barbus snarled. “How about you?”

For the first time since he set foot into the halls of Hell, the Fallen spoke. “I’m not sure. One way to find out, isn’t there?”


	3. the prison.

### 3964 BC

The sound of steps made him aware that he was no longer alone. His eyes were open, but his prison was so dark that he was effectively blind.

Demons could see in the dark; Fallen Angels could not.

The difference between them felt as stark as it did inconsequential. He’d been forgotten, abandoned, left behind. No different, really, from the rest of them, but his timing could not have been worse. The demons had been licking their wounds, recovering from the stalemate that marked the war’s end, and God had so-helpfully _giftwrapped_ an enemy for them to take out their frustration on.

Revenge. He deserved it. He had fought against them, had put them in their place. The countless demons he’d discorporated in the war — he remembered their faces and their fear more keenly now than he had when he’d first Fallen.

He’d seen many of them again, fear replaced with fury, reminders of his failings etched, branded, seared into his essence time and time and time again.

The steps were closer, but the malicious intent that usually followed in the wake of demons was mysteriously absent. Curious. The pressure was usually overwhelming, choking him, warning that things would get exponentially worse than they were already.

“Cherub.”

“Barbus.” The Fallen brushed idly at his robes, as if he could somehow remove the stains of blood and soot, returning them to their original white. “You’ve come alone.” It was strange; it seemed his founders had been avoiding him as of late. Most recently, he had heard Atrox from somewhere beyond the dark, talking to someone else. He had called out for her only for the words to die in his throat.

It could have been days ago, or it could have been years. Time had never worked the way he thought it should.

“I think it’s time we stopped putting off the inevitable.”

“Do you, now?”

“Quite.”

Barbus clicked his fingers, and the Fallen winced as light flooded his cell. Fire flickered at the tips of Barbus’s fingers, too close for comfort, but the Fallen looked past it to Barbus’s face. “And what do you think that looks like?”

Calmly. “I think it looks like finally telling the Kings and Lord that I Fell down here.”

“Why? You think they’re gonna help you?”

“No. I think they’ll be interested to know how long you’ve been hiding me down here from them.” A slight smile, “After all, I _am_ one of the enemy, no?”

“How do you know we didn’t tell them already?”

“Hm,” the Fallen pretended to think, rocking forward on his feet as he rolled his head upwards. “You could have, I suppose, but I find it odd that none of them have ever come to visit. They’ve not sent anyone to ask me questions. It’s been the same, on and on, since I first got here.”

“Maybe you don’t have anything to say.”

The Fallen huffed a faint laugh. “Perhaps, but isn’t it odd that they’ve never _tried_? No one in Hell is omniscient.” Barbus’s pale eyes narrowed at him, and the Fallen gave him a smile that could have passed for ‘soft’ if they were anywhere else. “Really, dear boy, what do you have to lose? It’s not as though you’ve been paying regular visits to this part of Hell much less to me. The longer you put this off, the angrier they’re going to be.” He folded his hands behind his back, rocking forward on his feet again. “And right now, you could implicate almost every demon below the Kings; there’ve been Marquises and Dukes and all other sorts hereabout. The longer you wait, the more can claim to have forgotten, assumed this wrapped itself up, etcetera.”

“You think,” Barbus purred, stepping closer, uncomfortably settled into the Fallen’s personal space, “that you’re so very clever, don’t you, Cherub?”

“I think I’m right,” he said, tilting his head down again, meeting Barbus’s gaze without flinching. “What else matters?”

A tight, irritated smile, and the fire flared in Barbus’s hand as he pressed it to the Fallen’s chest. The Fallen’s eyes squeezed closed, breath coming faster as it charred through layers of skin. Down to the bone. His legs gave out as his breathing came in desperate heaves. The scent of charred flesh overwhelmed, and the frantic thump of his heart drowned out anything Barbus might have tried to say.

Even when he snapped and removed the wound, the phantom pain persisted. The Fallen’s body trembled. A wry laugh burned in his throat.

“Is that all?” He reached up, touching the cloth that should have burned away, but Barbus had mended it as well as his injury. The nerves pulsed under the faint touch.

Sneering, “Why? Do you want more?”

“Does it matter what I want?” Slowly, he peered upwards.

“Not in the least.” A snap, and Barbus was gone, leaving the Fallen alone in the darkness again.

* * *

There wasn’t a door. There had been once, a solitary source of light from the halls outside. It had played tricks on his eyes. The walls and ceiling had always seemed just out of reach, close enough to be claustrophobic but never near enough to hide against. 

Eventually, they had taken it away.

Most demons didn’t wait until he noticed they were there. Without sight, without power, there was very little he could do to defend himself.

A sob, a laugh; the echoes of pain resounded when he was alone.

“Barbus!” he snarled, pacing in his cell. The rough stone floors cut at his feet, but that did little to slow him. He had no way of knowing if anyone could hear him, no way of knowing if his little pocket of Hell was somewhere far away from the main halls, or if it was situated right where it had been when they’d shoved him through the doorway.

The Fallen wasn’t quite angry. Anger needed to have a sense of entitlement behind it. If he’d learned anything, it was that he deserved nothing and would receive nothing. But he was as close to angry as he could be without it.

It hadn’t been a sniveling request for mercy or a promise for violence. It had been the first attempt at a compromise he’d made in the time he’d been in Hell, and it was the only one he was in any position to make.

If Barbus came back, the Fallen could make him see reason. He didn’t know how yet. But he knew that he _could_.

* * *

Imagine. Demons going soft.

“Shit, _shit_—”

The damage he did was negligible, but word would spread. The Fallen Angel was fighting back again. How long could they keep the whispers from those who weren’t meant to hear them? He could keep going. He had nothing left to lose.

* * *

Sitting alone in the dark, humming a hymn half-forgotten, and he flinched as faint light spilled in through a newly-opened doorway.

“Barbus,” he said with a bright smile. “Atrox. I haven’t seen the two of you in ages.”

“Didn’t think you’d be _glad_ to see us,” Atrox said with a snarl. “Considerin’.”

He didn’t bother to answer nor did he make to stand. Assuming what they wanted from him was often an exercise in futility. Mercurial things — demons enjoyed contradicting each other, keeping him forever in the dark about expectations. In truth, all they wanted was for him to suffer, and that was made easier if he never knew what would please the lot of them.

“You’ve been causin’ problems,” Atrox stood in the door, form imposing. Every minute movement caused a quiet but distinctive rattle, a warning and precursor to violence.

“Me?” he asked mildly. “I thought I couldn’t do anything.”

Petty, perhaps, and not his wisest decision, but it was a reminder. They were here for a reason which meant he had more power than none.

A sharp smile, all fangs, but she didn’t rise to the bait. Atrox had always been better at letting her threats hang, unspoken, in the air, letting him _anticipate_ the strike until his nerves felt frayed. He’d become intimately acquainted with her venom, but the roaring pain never dulled.

“Up,” Barbus snapped.

He obeyed, hands clasped behind his back, perfectly patient.

Barbus approached and circled behind him. The Fallen closed his eyes with a faint twitch, anticipation winding slowly up his spine until he heard a snap.

A gasp, fingers curling, grasping for the thick vines that wrapped tightly around his wrists, thorns digging brutally into his skin. The sound of blood dripping onto the floor echoed in the cell. Barbus wrapped a hand in the vines, pulling the Fallen Angel back against him while the thorns ripped deeper into him. For a moment, he waited, but the Fallen didn’t fight back, didn’t attempt to resist. The demon released the bindings and slid his hand between the Fallen’s shoulder blades, leading him forward towards the door.

His eyes fixed hungrily on the light as he neared the doorway. It was the first taste he’d had of the world beyond in cell in such a very long time.

Even as he stepped into the halls, he kept his hope carefully in check. He’d like to think that they’d seen reason, but they could just as easily lead him to a new prison, some new torture instead of taking him to the masters of Hell.

The halls were crowded, twisting, narrow. Demons bumped into him, but their attention seemed to slide off of him. He supposed his two escorts must be doing something to deter interference.

Narrow steps were hard to navigate with his hands bound behind him. More than once, he stumbled, and his wings flared into being to help him steady himself. He was loath to let them out, but they tucked themselves away without impediment. For once, no one grabbed them. No one led him by them. No one made him feel the stark difference between the wing that hadn’t properly healed and the one that had never broken. He hadn’t been able to look at them in so long, but he could feel the shift in balance.

Had he looked now, he would have seen how his right wing had withered over the years compared to his left wing which was large and full. 

Down and down they went until they at last came to a pair of great wooden doors. The Fallen kept his expression carefully neutral even as he looked over the intricate carvings of writhing, screaming angels of all kinds that had been worked into the wood. Atrox moved past him to open the doors, giving him a look when she noticed his wandering attention.

“Charming,” he said with a faint tilt of his lips. She smirked and creaked the doors open wide enough for them to walk through.

The antechamber was more brightly lit than the rest of Hell. The flames flickered less here, snapping loudly at the air they consumed. A demon lounged behind a broad, empty desk, feet propped up and chair tilted back at an extreme angle. They lifted their head, nostrils flaring at the scent of blood and eyes narrowed at the sight of the Fallen.

They knew him, and he knew them. It was one of the simple realities of Hell: for all that demons were unimaginative, they could be so _curious_, and his arrival had been the most interesting thing to happen since the war ended.

“What’s that doing here?” they demanded.

“Whaddya think?” Atrox walked ahead of them, and Barbus led the Fallen with a firm and unyielding hand. He walked forward without hesitation; he had no intention of trying to turn back now. “Time we offloaded this onto,” she waved her hand to the next set of doors, “them.”

“You sure that’s smart? Put it back by the lake of fire; let someone else find it.”

“No,” Barbus said, tugging on the Fallen’s shoulder until he turned to face him. Barbus’s pale irises glowed, and he settled a hand on the Fallen’s jaw. There was power in his touch, singeing the nerves beneath his fingers, warning. “You’re gonna keep our names out of your mouth, aren’t you, Cherub?”

Another tight smile; mutual understanding. “Naturally.”

They both knew that the demons of the court could extract information from him without him needing to say a word. They both also knew it was a process he would do his best to avoid. “Good.” Barbus looked past the Fallen at the other demon. “Do you need to announce him?”

“Does it have a name?”

“No,” Barbus and Atrox said.

“No,” the Fallen said at the same time. All three demons looked at him, and he continued to act as though he had been the one asked. “But all the same. Best be civil about this.”

The demon shoved themself up from the desk, rounding to the next set of heavy doors. Less intricate, fewer carvings, but they were all the more imposing for their lack of decoration.

“Good luck,” Barbus murmured.

“You’re gonna need it,” Atrox added, and the two pushed him forward. The vines ripped from his arms as he staggered, bleeding but free.

“Your Majesties, my Lord,” the demon of the antechamber spoke beyond the door. “A Fallen Angel to see you.”

The sweetest laugh he’d ever heard rattled through his bones. The noise crawled under his skin, prickling along his arms and across the nape of his neck, a haunting familiarity twisting in his gut as the voice spoke: “Send him in.”

Weight sunk onto his shoulders before he stepped over the threshold. A shivering breath, and, without looking back, he walked forward.

Harsh shadows crept along the edges of the court; the details of carved stone and lurking demons were thrown into an all-consuming darkness. The source of light sat on a dais opposite the door. His Kings sat on lower platforms around the edges of the room, surrounded by present members of their own courts and Kingdoms.

The Fallen’s instinct was to turn away, to avert his eyes from the merciless incandescence of the Lord of Hell. He was too bright, too painful to look at. When the Fallen blinked, there were explosions of lights behind his lids, imprinting on his delicate pupils that had spent so long submerged in darkness.

When he next opened his eyes, he turned off the need to blink and stared resolutely into Lucifer's light as he walked into the center of the room.

As he adjusted, he could make out more of the form behind the blinding brightness. A long, lean body lounged in the throne. Eyes that gleamed with the first sparks of hellfire held onto the Fallen Angel. He gave a thick swallow when he noticed the ashen scales that decorated the Devil along the ridges of his body, making his sharp angles seem even sharper.

The Fallen knew him. The pieces fit together so perfectly, he wondered how he had never seen the full picture before.

But the arrogance of understanding could wait. Ignoring the jeering of the demons, he continued looking into the blaze of shattered glory before him before sweeping into a deep bow.

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” that honey-sweet voice asked, and the rest of the court stuttered into silence.

“Yes, it has,” he agreed, straightening up again with a slight, bitter smile. “I must confess: I didn’t recognize you before.”

Lucifer gave a smile with fangs that gleamed with the same fire-bright light as his eyes. “Oh?”

“I’m afraid your radiance was dimmed on Earth, Lucifer.”

A ripple of disquiet spread among the gathered demons. One of the five Kings — did it matter which? — yelled for him to show respect to his Lord. He supposed it wasn’t common to call him by his God-given name even if it hadn’t been burned away as his own had been.

Good.

“I see.” Lucifer rested his head on a delicate hand. “How long has it been since you Fell?” The Fallen hesitated. The reminder made his heart _squeeze_ in his chest, the memory of God _turning away_, but Lucifer, so immediately present and right in front of him, smiled just a bit wider. “Come now, angel.”

“I don’t know.” Honesty was probably not a valued asset in Hell nor was it the entire truth. Even if he didn’t know the exact length of time, he knew it was longer than it should have been for him to arrive here.

“Hm.” Lucifer sighed. “Disappointing.”

The Fallen’s eyes were drawn to Lucifer’s other hand as it waved. Lights flickered into existence, and the Fallen barely had time to make out white feathers before they were flying at him, the barbs cutting across his skin before the quills dug into his flesh, sticking deep into his body and quivering with phantom movements after. A whimper built in his chest, and the Fallen choked around it. More upsetting than the pain was the Devil's decree: disappointing. He couldn’t _afford_ to be disappointing.

A shudder ran through his body and every feather sticking into him, and he pulled himself upright. His hands curled into fists at his side for a brief moment before he forced them to relax.

“Allow me to make it up to you.”

Lucifer’s eyes held onto him. The attention was strangely intoxicating. “How?” he asked. Another wave; more feathers appeared in a bright halo around the edge of his light. The points aimed at him.

As steadily as he could manage, he spoke. “Let me go up there. Let me— Let me _show_ Them where my loyalty lies.” His body trembled, but he stayed standing, stayed looking into Lucifer’s light. “The temptation, Eden — I saw what it did.” Unsure of how and equally unsure of what he would do if he failed, he said: “I can do worse.”

“My Lord,” someone spoke up. “He’s not even a demon. How’s he gonna do what _demons_ haven’t—”

Lucifer flicked a single finger, and a feather flashed through the air. The Fallen didn’t bother to follow its trajectory. The cut off, choking sound from behind him told him all he needed to know. Without acknowledging the interruption, Lucifer returned his attention to the Fallen Angel. “Do you know what the cost of betraying me will be?”

“No, Morningstar,” he answered truthfully.

An indulgent smile. “You will wish every single day for death that will never come. You will be made an example of.” He unfolded himself, placing his arms on the throne as he leaned forward, peering into the depths of the Fallen’s soul. “And do you know what the cost of _failing me_ will be?”

“Something worse, my Lord?”

“Oh, yes. Much, _much_ worse.”

A slight smile, forced but nonetheless present. “Then I shan’t fail.”

A flick of Lucifer’s hand, and the feathers ripped out of the Fallen’s body so suddenly that he reeled. “See that you don’t.”

Another flick, and the Fallen was suddenly standing in a field that stretched endlessly under a blue sky. Shaking from head to toe, he sank into the tall grass, feeling the wind on his skin, the light on his face, and the air in his lungs for the first time since Eden.

He felt as though he should weep, having been given a moment to breathe in the freedom of the open air, but no tears fell.


	4. the temptation.

Eventually, he had to get up.

He wanted to stay where he was, bleeding, wrecked, and empty. He wanted to let his body age and decay until the wind stripped the last miserable atoms from each other, scattering them to the four corners of the Earth. He wanted, one way or another, for all of this to end, but his wanting had always been ultimately pointless, and his prayers remained unanswered.

He had to get up, so he did.

As he stood, a feeling rushed through him, over his skin and down into his veins, marrow, and deeper, woven into the fabric of his celestial soul. The Fallen Angel took a shaky breath, tilting his head and rolling his shoulders as infernal power burned through him. It settled within him as if they had always been one and the same. A soft sigh escaped, and the Fallen Angel opened his eyes. As he did, the open wounds on his body disappeared, and the robe he wore bled the last of its white color into the earth at his feet. The grass withered and died in a circle around him.

He wasn’t quite a demon, but he had come as close as one could without stepping over the line.

As such, he supposed the powers were temporary, loaned to him so he could complete the task as he’d promised. For a moment, he wondered if he oughtn’t thank Satan for the gift, but he quickly pushed such niceties from his mind.

The only thing that mattered was succeeding.

He reached out with his fledgling power, searching until he felt the tug of the near-familiar. A pit of longing ached at the center of him, memories rising like the tide, cresting and crashing against him with such strength that they could have overwhelmed. The humans still lived. They felt different now than they had in Eden. Less, somehow; as if their colors had faded with the time they’d spent apart from him.

The first steps were the hardest, but he took them and ambled towards the cradle of civilization.

* * *

At night, there was only one source of unnatural light on Earth.

He sat on a not-too distant hillside, looking down at the clumsily-constructed home of clay and thatch. Firelight flickered beneath the animal hide that hung across the doorway. The sword — _his_ sword — had lit that flame as surely as it now lay next to Adam as he slept.

The idea occurred, of course, to take it back, to make it quick and end the failed experiment of humanity before Their very eyes. Humans were so frail to begin with. Even armed with a holy sword and Knowledge, they wouldn’t stand a chance against him.

But. They were still alive.

Lucifer hadn’t killed them in the Garden when they were utterly defenseless. For whatever reason, he wanted them to live. It wasn’t the Fallen’s place to question or understand; it simply set the precedent to follow. 

The first temptation had evicted them from Eden, from Heaven on Earth as close as it could ever be. It had meant the loss of home and of innocence. It had meant tasting God’s wrath for the first time. He didn’t know how to do worse than that. There wasn’t a Tree of Knowledge now, no forbidden fruit begging to be tasted. There was the abode, the nearby river, the fields, and the flock.

He pushed himself to his feet and approached the sheep as they slept. The flock was the one thing he didn’t quite understand. There had been no need for domestic animals in Eden as everything had been as tame as wild things could possibly be. Animals had never posed a threat to Adam and Eve until they’d faced the lion outside the walls.

Miraculous, he supposed, that the lion hadn’t killed them both. Incredible, really, how Adam had known how to use the sword — had known how to kill a much fiercer natural predator — without any practice. Without realizing he was doing it, the Fallen’s teeth ground against each other. Power gathered in the air around him, and the animals felt it. They shifted against one another, waking, bleating uneasily. Their wool had gotten thicker in the time he’d been gone; their horns were somewhat blunted.

The world was still made for the humans. Even after being cast out of Their grace, they were thriving. They were writing over the way things had been deliberately shaped in the beginning. It was the only way to explain why the sheep waited here, staring at him with those blank and stupid eyes instead of fleeing for their lives.

Suddenly, there was light.

The Fallen turned his head, staring at the place where the darkness fell away. The first thing he saw was the sword, bright and flickering, banishing the edges of the night. Then, he noticed the human holding it. He was smaller than either of his parents had ever been. His round face was soft even in the firelight, and he approached the sheep with the same fearlessness with which Adam had first traversed the Garden.

Soft words fell from his lips, and despite the Fallen Angel standing nearby with wrath wrapped around him like a cloak, the sheep began to calm. Some eased into the human’s touch while others darted just out of it. The flock moved easily around him.

The young man lifted the sword higher, and it shook in his hand. The circle of light grew, and his eyes narrowed as he scanned the darkness for the flash of predatory eyes.

At one point, he looked straight through the Fallen, who frowned, wondering if this was his moment. If—

“Abel.”

A second presence, more familiar than Abel’s, exited the hut. The child of Eden approached his brother who handed the sword to him without hesitation. Taller, broader, he was able to lift it higher, pushing the shadows back further.

“Anything?” Abel asked.

“It must have run off.” He lowered the blade, and the flock was mostly submerged in darkness and starlight. “Are they settled?”

“I think so. I don’t count any missing.”

“Good.” He gave a slight smile and reached out to clap Abel’s shoulder. “Come back inside. Mother worries.”

“I hope the wolves stay away.”

“They will.” The Fallen sensed a lie, but Abel did not. With a tired smile of his own, he followed his brother back inside, leaving the Fallen alone with the sheep again. 

Once the humans were gone, many of them began to stare at him once more. He reached out towards the sheep, both with a hand and with the infernal power lent to him by the Devil himself. Despite its unease, one began to approach him, looking up with those dark, dull eyes.

“I really don’t know what this will do,” he murmured to the one caught in his snare. “But I can’t imagine it will be pleasant.” It sounded almost like an apology. Almost. The sheep nudged its head forward, and as it came in contact with the Fallen, the world _shifted._

There was a distinct _rip_ that tore up through his skin. It sunk its claws into the sheep, tearing it apart at a molecular level so swiftly that it couldn’t begin to cry out in pain. A burst of blood turned into cinders then into stardust and covered him in a flash, causing him to glow faintly. A headache pounded through his skull and settled behind his eyes. The world swam in the dim light, and when it cleared again, he was standing much lower to the ground. There was a heavy weight on both sides of his head where horns grew and curled. A pair of eyes the color of a midday sky looked back at the flock, horizontal, rectangular pupils staring at them as the last of the light faded.

The Fallen struck a hoof against the ground, shaking his head and feeling it coil down every hair on his woolly body before he settled in among the other sheep and waited for daybreak.

* * *

The child of Eden was named Cain. He toiled in the sparser fields, coaxing life into stubborn plants that would prefer to wither than bear fruit figuratively or literally. There was always dirt on his hands, under his nails. He smelled of the Earth the way neither human before him had, and he seemed, at times, to glow with some form of divine light housed within himself.

Abel most often held a staff that helped to carry him up the hills and down the dales. He followed the flock until it was time to lead them home, and with a strange magnetism that must be a blessing, they always seemed to follow. Abel had helped to bring lambs into the world, and he had taken up the angelic sword, bleeding out the injured and the weak of the flock.

Both brothers spoke to God often, thanking Them.

Did they not know what they had lost before either of them had been born? Had neither Adam nor Eve told them of Eden, of paradise stolen?

The Fallen strayed little, remaining in the safety of the flock. Though he couldn’t see proof of angels lurking about, he doubted God or the Heavenly Host would have left the humans alone completely. The last thing he needed was to draw attention to himself while he waited.

There would be a moment — he wasn’t sure when it would be or how he would know it when it arrived — when it would be his time to move. Too soon, and he would alert Heaven. Too late, and he would miss the window of opportunity.

He had tasted freedom for the first time in decades, and he could not — would not — lose it again.

He could almost remember God’s light falling upon him, hear Their voice speaking to him. The name and the purpose that had been taken from him were hidden away in the fractures of his heart, never forgotten though no longer his own. His shattered faith yearned for the assurance that he had once felt, that there was a grand design, an ultimate purpose behind everything that happened.

He wasn’t quite sure when it had broken beyond repair.

His ears swiveled, and he chanced a look skyward. “You could stop this,” he said to the stars on a cloudless night. His mouth bled with the profanity of speaking to Them, and he felt it drip down into his wool.

There was no answer. He hadn’t expected there to be.

* * *

Abel had the sword.

It trembled against the tender throat of a terrified sheep which struggled fruitlessly, two sets of bound hooves flailing against the ground. It tossed its muzzled head, rolling its eyes wildly, but Abel continued putting the bulk of his weight on the creature that was fated to die. He murmured kind, soothing words as his free hand tilted the sheep’s head towards the sky. “Rest now, my friend, and know peace.” There was a sizzle as Abel opened its throat and blood dripped into the flames and onto the ground below, staining the sheep, dirt, and human red.

In a matter of moments, the sheep’s struggles weakened into faint twitches, and its eyes stared into nothingness.

The Fallen watched from a short distance as Abel dropped the sword.

It wasn’t a rarity to see the youngest human kill one of the flock. But it was strange. The specimen chosen was a healthy ram that had no reason to die, and rather than continuing to butcher it now, Abel scooped it up in his arms. The creature was so large that the edges spilled out of Abel’s grip, and he had to shift and adjust before carrying it away from the flock.

As he had observed everything since coming here, the Fallen followed. He paused for only a moment to consider the blade, abandoned for the first time since he’d arrived, before shaking his head and continuing at pace. He marched out of the hills and into the fields where Cain often toiled, down to the riverbank where Abel found his brother putting together a pyre.

There was something lingering in the air, a heaviness that even the humans felt, as if a storm was brewing on some secret side of an otherwise bright and sunny day. Neither Cain nor Abel smiled at one another; they said nothing to disturb their uncomfortable silence, emphasized by the river rushing nearby. They touched only once, the blood on Abel’s hand mingling with the soil on Cain’s in a brief clasp before the two moved apart again. Abel lay the ram upon the altar while Cain gathered and placed the fruits of his labor on the other side.

Both men knelt, bowed, and there was a spark to the kindling as they both began to pray.

The divine flame roared to life, consuming both offerings in a matter of moments. The smoke climbed higher, and at the point where it ought to have disappeared, there formed a pinprick of white that cracked and opened a fissure in the sky. Holy light fell upon the humans, and the form of an angel took shape.

The Fallen Angel knew the Metatron by sight alone. They had met once when the Fallen had first been assigned to Eden — the Metatron was the Voice of God and the highest angel in the hierarchy of the Heavenly Host. He was the immovable wall between humanity and their almighty Creator.

And he had done nothing. Not when Satan had slithered up from Hell, not when he’d threatened the Angel of the Eastern Gate, and certainly not when he’d hissed treacherous words into the humans’ ears, blotting out God’s voice with his own.

The Metatron had failed, yet he descended from Heaven with a beatific smile. He spoke words that the Fallen could not hear, and Abel turned his face from the ground, eyes glowing with the divine blessing that wrapped around him before seeping into his soul. Cain remained prone, his shoulders twisting with an acute despair that the Fallen could feel even from this distance. When the Metatron turned to Cain, his smile fell slightly, and as he spoke to him, the young man trembled under the weight of the angel’s attention.

Judgement was a terrible burden.

The light overhead grew brighter, and the Metatron’s wings spread before he disappeared into it. The crack in the sky knit itself closed, the flames on the pyre died, and the world was bereft.

The Fallen Angel nosed through the grass, wandering closer in meandering steps. He was still uncertain, unsafe — the Metatron’s absence did not mean the absence of all angelic forces — but curiosity got the best of him.

The brothers picked themselves up out of the dust that had been used to mold Adam’s flesh. “Next time,” Abel ventured softly, ignoring the stubborn set of Cain’s shoulders, the pointed way in which he avoided Abel’s eyes. “The harvest will be better. You will have more to offer.”

“I know,” Cain said. The pain of his rejection ran deep. “We are blessed.”

“We are,” Abel said as gently as he could, but he couldn’t wipe the smile from his face. “Do you mind if I go tell Mother and Father?”

“Of course not. It’s yours to celebrate.” He lifted his head, forcing himself to look at his younger brother, to smile. In looking up, he spotted the Fallen as he pretended to graze. “One of yours?”

“Unfortunately. I couldn’t catch him.” Indeed, he could not, and he had tried for the better part of the morning. “He was my first choice for today.”

Cain shook his head with a slight, forced chuckle. “I’ll take him back to the flock.” He held out his hand, and after only a moment’s hesitation, Abel handed over the staff.

* * *

Once out of Abel’s sight, Cain allowed himself to slump. He leaned into the staff, irately shaking the end near the Fallen to urge him forward when he wasn’t using it to balance himself. “Lucky thing,” he muttered in the Fallen’s direction.

The cruel irony writhed in his stomachs. Lucky? Neither of them were. He had spent the past forty years in the recesses of Hell, learning intimately what it meant to be truly forsaken, while Cain had spent it beneath the watchful gaze of a cruel and uncaring deity.

If either of them had been fortunate in the least, they would not be where they were in these circumstances.

It would not be the moment the Fallen Angel had been waiting for.

“You needn’t be so down.”

Cain’s steps stuttered to a halt, but the Fallen walked a few more before he paused, turning his head until his piercing gaze met Cain’s own. The man’s brow wrinkled, lips parted in stunned silence. The Fallen said, “God is quite capricious. You can never be sure exactly what They want. I imagine plants are a good deal more difficult to motivate than animals.”

“You’re a sheep,” Cain said. He didn’t sound as surprised as the Fallen expected him to.

“Yes. Had I known what I was chosen for, I wouldn’t have run quite so fast this morning.”

A frown. “You _want_ to die?”

“Heavens, no. But to be given divine favor… Why, would I not be the luckiest sheep in the flock?” He could feel it, now, the same agony that had been present when the Metatron gave God’s love to Abel. Within Cain lay a deep and yearning hunger, a desire to be _seen_ that the Fallen knew all-too well. It had been the same pain that he had felt year after year, begging with a bleeding tongue for a second chance, for _mercy._

He stepped closer, eyes holding on to Cain’s. There was power behind his words, a temptation, offering a choice where there had previously been none. “If he was not standing in your way, even God would see your worth. Unfortunately, the weakest in the flock are often the ones that draw the most attention. It is why they are typically…” He trailed off and turned his head, watching from the corner of his eye as Cain followed his gaze to the sword where it lay, flickering and bloodied, left by Abel earlier that day. “Well. You understand.”

Cain did.

* * *

The sun dipped towards the horizon, casting long shadows along the ground. The sky swam with vibrant oranges and yellows, brighter than the divine flames had been on the altar, and a solitary figure stood in a field, silhouetted against the sky.

The flaming sword faltered and fell from his hand. His hands, covered in blood, came up to cover his mouth and he, shaking, fell to his knees. “No,” Cain said, his voice choking in his throat. “No, _no_. Abel?”

The euphoria of violence, of righteous rage and damnable pride, rushed out of him, leaving a barren darkness in its place. “Abel, wake up. Please. Please, wake up.”

He had known what would happen. The Fallen had seen the idea as it formed in Cain’s mind, and everything had gone exactly as he’d planned. Tricking Abel into leading him to where he’d left the sword, turning on him as suddenly as a viper set to strike — he was faster, stronger, and Abel had been unprepared and afraid.

“Abel?”

There could be no claims of innocence. Malicious intent had been woven into every step of the act.

This was humanity’s triumph.

Cain stood, tears streaming down his face. He looked towards the Fallen who regarded him evenly. Cain’s chest heaved with the pain of his bleeding heart, and when he cried out, the shout echoed through the valley.

The Fallen waited for him to pick up the sword, to follow through on the violent impulses that flashed lightning-quick through his heart, whispering lies that this could be rectified, that the world could ever be set to rights.

“Killing me won’t bring him back.”

Was it kindness or cruelty that led him to speak? He could no longer tell.

* * *

A great and terrible cry shook the sky which had seen Abel’s death with cruel indifference, cracking open the earth which had drank of his blood. A great flock of crows scattered from the fields and hills, wheeling in circles as the clouds spiraled overhead. Heaven would open again, would pass down punishment to the humans as it had before. His work was done.

But before the Metatron appeared, there was a bright flash as if a star had collapsed in on itself. Heat and wind rushed over the grass, whipping around the Fallen as he left the humans behind, and in the midst of the explosion of light, he saw a bright streak of gold racing through the air towards him.

He barely had time to abandon his form for one that could fight before the Seraph collided with him. Six large, white wings encompassed him; yellow eyes streamed with bright tears. _“You,”_ the angel snarled through his fangs before they flashed together out of the sight of the first murder.

They reeled into the air half a continent away. The Fallen flapped his wings, twisting to the right and up, more miracle than wingwork given the way his weak wing did little more than twitch.

“Me?” he asked, kicking away from the angel who followed close after him. Righteous fury glowed from the center of his essence outward, wrapping around his ethereal form. It burned when even the edges touched the Fallen.

But he had endured fire before.

“Cain made his choice. He led Abel to the field; he picked up the sword.” A desperate laugh tore from his throat as the Seraph cut up, wrapping his hands around the Fallen’s shoulders. “And now, he’ll be punished for it.”

He folded his wings close, infernal power enveloping him again, spitting them out above a dark ocean. The stars gleamed overhead and reflected off the choppy waters below. They coldly stared from every direction as the angel and demon plummeted down.

He pressed back, hands scrabbling at the angel’s arms, sharper nails opening golden bleeding wounds. “Isn’t that _fair_? Isn’t that what he _deserves_?”

“Neither of them deserved this, _demon._”

Oh, but the angel was _right_. He realized it with a sudden, slight gasp before he managed a smile. He had crossed the threshold. And that meant these powers were _his_. 

Eyes winked open along his body and wings; horizontal pupils all turned and stared directly into the angel. He gorged himself on knowledge.

Another snake, another garden. Instead of treachery, there was comfort, a promise of safety and care. The plants were wild, resistant to human interference, but they would be tamed in time. Cain needed patience; Cain needed _guidance_. He was there to provide it. The beloved child of Eden did not carry the burden of his parents’ sin alone.

This was Corvai. His heartbreak could have leveled mountains, and he brought all of his pain and sorrow down on the demon responsible.

The two celestial beings blinked out of existence again mere milliseconds before they would have hit the water.

Instead, the demon rolled through the sand of a shoreline, wings tucked in and all eyes closed against the grit.

Corvai landed at the edge of the water which lapped at his ankles. He spread his wings, and bared his fangs.

The demon picked himself up off the ground. 

To the east, the sun crested on the horizon, painting the sky with soft, rosy pinks as the stars began to fade from sight.

“D’you know what you’ve done? What you’ve taken?” Corvai demanded and stalked forward. His steps wove, giving the impression of wandering even as he prowled straight towards the demon.

His smile fell, and he idly banished the sand from his black robe. “More than you do, I’ll wager.”

Bristling, his dark hair twisting in the cold morning breeze, the angel stopped near enough that the demon was forced to tilt his head up slightly to meet Corvai’s eyes. The grief rolled off of him in waves, but it crashed against the demon without moving him. “They could’ve rebuilt paradise.”

His shattered hope was piteously misplaced.

A truth softly spoken still had edge enough to cut. “Your side closed that off to them long before I ever did.” He clicked his tongue, folding his hands behind him. “Honestly, Corvai, haven’t you been paying attention?”

The rage resurged with a vengeance. Corvai grabbed the collar of his robe, hauling him close with a snarl that shook a star to falling. Divinity burned the demon from the touch of his hands, spreading quickly until it fully engulfed him. The pain sunk beneath his skin, his bones, ripping open the scars that had formed when he had Fallen. It hurt, but the demon laughed again with a levity that made Corvai’s light blaze all the brighter in warning.

It was too late to turn back. 

“My thanks, angel.”

In a final burst of light, the demon discorporated, leaving Corvai standing alone on the beach. Black feathers fell from his hands, caught on the wind, and twisted into the sky.

In Hell, Azram opened his eyes.


	5. the devil.

He’d never been discorporated before.

He supposed it would have been too great a risk, having to get a new body every time the visitors to his cell went too far. Not that he’d _needed_ one to exist in Hell, but as he was dragged back down into the pit in fractured pieces, he suddenly understood the appeal.

Without a body, there was no pain.

Sensation was neither pleasant nor harmful — it simply _was_. He could feel his essence reassembling into a familiar shape, and he could feel the heat of Hell’s flames as they devoured him again. But as intense and all-consuming as both felt, they faded in an instant and left nothing lingering.

Where was the joy to be found in torturing something that didn’t hurt or bleed or cry?

Unlike Heaven, newly-disembodied demons were not given time or space to reorient themselves. In a blink, he stood among the throngs of demons that wove against one another through the Halls, being shuffled along wherever the crowd was moving. He didn’t dare resist, flowing with the current until he found the stairs. He had landed fairly high, and he supposed the minor annoyance of having to walk down to the court was one of Hell’s many specific charms.

For a moment, he hesitated, the distinct feeling of being watched creeping over him, but as he looked around, he realized that no one was paying attention to him. There was neither purposeful avoidance nor insistent staring. In fact, the only person who seemed to notice him at all was someone in whose way he was standing. Her shoulder bumped heavily into his, a growled, _“Move,”_ the only indication that she’d actually noticed him at all.

He went at a measured pace down the steps and relished in being left alone.

The carvings on the antechamber doors were no less grotesque the second time around, and he paid them even less mind than he had at first. One of his silky, triangular ears flicked against the base of one of his horns, and he pulled the door open enough to admit himself into the antechamber.

The same demon sat behind the desk. They looked up, distinctly disinterested, and asked, “Name?”

His name hadn’t been given to him by a benevolent and kind Creator. It had been ripped from Their hands, the shattered pieces realigned into something that resonated with him as he was now. It was a permanent mark on the world, one he had made for himself, and he gave it freely. “Azram.”

The demon knew him in an instant — knew what he had been, knew what he had been sent to Earth to do, and knew he had returned sans corporal form.

It was only fair, really, for Azram to know their name as well. He felt the knowledge darting just out of his reach, and with a quick cock of his head, he pulled it close and then apart as if pulling tender flesh from a bone. Caruk’s eyes narrowed, their lip curling in a sneer. Azram supposed it was uncouth, to take something that could be freely given, but demons had scarcely made a habit of asking him for cooperation. Why should he?

They asked, “Wassit like up there?”

“Terribly boring.” In many ways, Earth was. It remained, by and large, the way it had been made, and what few changes there had been would hardly matter to anyone not grossly enthralled with the minutiae of potential human tragedy. It just so happened to be that it was Lucifer’s cup of tea. “Would you be so kind as to announce me?”

Caruk shoved themself up from the desk with a snarl. “Nothin’ _kind_ about it.”

Azram smiled patiently. “Right. Of course,” and neglected to offer an alternative.

They opened the door enough to peek through the crack, and said, “All six of the big ones are in there.”

“Good.” He smoothed out his robes unnecessarily. “Hurry it up. The sooner you get it over with, the sooner you can leave.”

He, on the other hand, intended to walk into the lions’ den while hoping to avoid the worst of the teeth.

Caruk leaned into the door leading to the court, swinging it open wider. Even from here, Lucifer’s light spilled through the cracks. It scoured, claimed every inch of Hell it could reach and sought more, and this was him showing restraint. If he wanted, the Lord of Hell could have flooded every nook and cranny from the deepest circle up to the thin places where one could pass from Hell to Earth with relative ease. It could have consumed in endless hunger and then only stopped because the laws of the universe said that it must, as the terms of the war’s temporary truce dictated that no one of Heaven or Hell could lay claim to Earth until Armageddon.

Caruk cleared their throat. “An Azram to see you, my Lord.”

There was a subtle creeping dread that came with being suddenly known by the rulers of Hell as though he had stepped into a cool shadow on an otherwise hot day.

Lucifer’s voice was a melody in a minor key, beautiful but expertly crafting a careful tension that lingered in its wake. “Come in.”

Azram clasped his hands behind him and crossed the threshold.

The court was made of rough edges. Carved out of stone, raw and unpolished, divided into Satan’s throne across from the antechamber door, and five other sections for the Kings. Crammed into those spaces were demons of their Kingdoms here to enjoy the spectacles of the court while desperately hoping not to be turned into one themselves.

Lucifer was blindingly resplendent. He lounged artfully in his throne, legs crossed and hellfire eyes gleaming as Azram took center stage. The dark scales on his body glittered, fractures of night on pale skin.

“You have a name now.”

“Do you like it?” he asked cordially.

Lucifer had once been the most beautiful angel in the Heavenly Host. When God had created light, They had created him. He had brought forth the first spark from which all stars were made. His smile was dazzling, radiant, and it pulled at something within Azram that he was helpless but to answer. The horns that curled on both sides of his head creaked and ached as they grew longer. His pupils slanted into rectangles, and his irises swallowed the whites of his eyes. At the base of his spine, there was a sharp, blooming sensation as it lengthened into a short tail.

Lucifer said, “It suits you,” in a way that could have indicated either the name or his appearance.

Azram wisely didn’t ask for clarification.

“Thank you, Morningstar.”

There was a distinct ripple of disquiet. Demons murmured until someone — one would suppose it to be the Lord of Flies zirself — buzzed a low note of warning that made the court fall to silence. Lucifer looked to Beelzebub, but Azram did not follow his gaze, readily meeting the Devil’s own when it turned back to him.

An indulgent smile spread on his lips, fangs shining and leaving the imprint of them piercing behind Azram’s eyes. “Tell me. What have you done to Their creations?”

“I have tempted the firstborn into killing his brother.” 

The smile slipped from Lucifer’s face, and Azram instantly felt power prying, searching for a weak point to slither in, to see. He was hardly going to wait for Lucifer to crack his head open and take it. He _opened_ himself; the cold, shattered wheels of his true form spun, the eyes dimly reflecting Lucifer’s light as he unfolded further and further until he was pushing at his absolute limit. In a snap, the eyes all turned inward, focusing on the raw infernal power that had abandoned all attempts at appearing human. He glowed, memories flashing lightning-fast through his celestial being, sharing themselves.

He didn’t really need a mouth to speak. “The fourth human to live was the first to die, and the child conceived in Eden—”

“Will be ours,” Lucifer said with soft realization.

Azram’s form collapsed in on itself, shards, eyes, and stray feathers disappearing as he abruptly returned to his usual shape.

His head spun, though he couldn’t be sure if it was more from the sudden shift between forms or Lucifer’s undivided attention.

Perhaps it was arrogance, but hadn’t he said that this was to prove where his loyalty lay? Hadn’t he proven it beyond a shadow of a doubt? He unclasped his hands to sweep into a deep bow and said, “I hope the second temptation lived up to the first, my Lord.”

He expected it to be harder. He had been created to serve God. The Cherubim were Their servants, made to fulfill their particular task. Had he not Fallen, he probably would have stayed in Eden until Armageddon, tending to the Gate until time came to an end.

Who was he to suddenly declare himself for someone else, to give himself away to a cause other than Their own?

Strangely, he found it to be the easiest thing he’d ever done.

He straightened and fixed his eyes on Lucifer again.

“If not,” Lucifer said, “it was certainly a worthy effort.” He glanced casually around the room. “Did any of you know that humans could die?”

There was a dangerous edge to his voice, an unspoken demand of _‘and why not?’_

Hisses, whispers — the noise built to murmurs, accusations, infighting. 

Azram did not move, nor did he look away. He didn’t doubt, now, that many of the Kings would take him if he gave them the chance. He had succeeded where all others failed, and the Devil, for better or for worse, had shown interest in him. They would use him. They would wring every last drop from him until he ran dry, and he could use them in turn to climb to a better position for the inevitable return to war.

But right here, right now, Lucifer was watching _him_. Azram would not look away so long as he had the Devil’s eye.

Ignoring the hubbub around him, Lucifer asked, “With which sin did you tempt Cain?”

Each Kingdom had their specialty sin: one of the big ones that could damn a soul to Hell on its own. Gluttony, Lust, Sloth, Greed, and Envy were represented here by the dozens.

Two of the sins belonged to the Devil alone. Satan had carved out the circles of Hell in his Fall and had created Wrath in his fury. Lucifer, the beloved angel, had questioned God’s authority, had tried to wrench it from Their hands. He had created ambition and hubris, and his Fall had led to those of the others who believed they were worthy of all that he tried to take for himself.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Azram claimed Lucifer’s sin for his own: “Pride.”

After a few minutes of listening to the outrage around them, Lucifer mused,“Good work well done must be rewarded, mustn’t it?” Azram dipped his head in a slight nod, enough to indicate that he listened, heard, _agreed_ above all things, even knowing the dangers of indulging someone with the means to do whatever he liked with a mere wiggle of his fingers.

All Lucifer did was snap. Azram reeled at the sudden weight of a body as his corporation reformed. His soul restlessly tried to tear itself free. It longed for the weightlessness, the quick dissipation of feeling that couldn’t turn truly into pain. But trapped as it was with nowhere to go, it reluctantly settled into the weary bones. When his head had cleared, Azram gave a polite smile, speaking evenly despite the ongoing arguments around them that ought to have drowned out his voice. “Thank you.”

There was an immediate, noticeable ache behind his eyes that came from staring into the dazzling light ahead of him. It was certainly harder now to do what he’d intended to from the start. He hadn’t asked to be burdened with a body, but he was hardly going to complain. The pain dug deeper, and he refused to look away. Really, what concern was it if he discorporated again? Would he not end up right back here, demanding to be seen with what little power he possessed?

There was a prickling at the corner of his eyes, wetness sliding down his round cheeks and gathering at his chin. Sticky, black blood formed a slow drip. Azram didn’t blink. He would let himself go blind — would let this weak form crumble on itself first. After all, it was only pain.

He didn’t wait long in the grand scheme of things.

Lucifer uncrossed his legs and stood. The bickering that had been steadily growing more louder and more violent slammed into sudden silence as the Lord of Hell spoke. “Come here.”

He stepped forward and up onto the otherwise-empty dais. The Devil had no direct underlings of his own. What use would he possibly have for them when he ruled over all?

There was a sudden clap as Lucifer’s wings spread. They were, like the rest of him, so bright that it _hurt_. His feathers were as white as an angel’s, untouched by sulfur. They were so large that when they swept forward, the rest of the court was blocked out, leaving him alone in a claustrophobic cocoon with the Lord of Hell.

Azram couldn’t stop his own wings from unfolding. He became truly aware of them for the first time, the uneven balance that made him feel terribly off kilter. His left wing extended, the brittle, burned primaries touching Lucifer’s healthy wings. His right could barely twitch outward before closing again; the effort required to keep it open was too great.

For the first time, he flinched. His cheek gave the tiniest twitch and his eyes fell.

Lucifer’s touch was so cold that it _burned_. He cupped Azram’s face, pulling it up to face him. Azram’s gaze wavered before he managed to still, and Lucifer rewarded him by gently caressing his cheek, leaving a trail of pain and a smear of his own blood behind. His body shook without his permission, and he pushed himself to lean into Lucifer’s touch. 

What was the worst he could do? Destroy him? Azram could feel the intangible reagents of his soul scraping against each other, attempting to pull apart only to be dragged back together in dizzying fluctuation. Lucifer could unmake him in an instant with no consequences. He could feel the Devil’s power skimming just under his fingers, a threat and a promise both. Azram could hardly breathe.

When Lucifer’s hands fell away, Azram had been cleaned up. His wings slowly folded, and he gave a smug, self-satisfied smile. “Sit here.”

He hadn’t realized he’d walked further until he was standing right before Lucifer’s throne. Azram’s knees buckled, bringing him to kneel. By the time Lucifer lowered himself back into his seat, the newest demon had shifted his knees apart into a slightly more comfortable configuration. His wings spread as much as they were able.

A shudder wracked up his spine as Lucifer’s fingers carded through his white curls, knuckles bumping against the curve of his horns.

Without looking down at him again, Lucifer spoke to the room at large: “Continue. As you were.”

He could feel the eyes of the court on him, could feel the weight of them, but all Lucifer had to do was clear his throat once before the tension broke and the roar of accusations of incompetence began anew.

* * *

Time crawled on its hands and knees. At some point, he had been allowed to sit rather than kneel at the foot of the throne. He keenly watched the court as voices washed over him. Five Kingdoms all existed in a state of conflict, and one could easily gather that this was how Lucifer wanted it: a little more chaotic, a little more confusing than Heaven had been.

He was doing a fairly decent job.

Every now and then, Azram’s train of thought would stutter to a halt at the feeling of fingers stroking through his hair or grasping lightly onto one of his horns — never pulling, but a steady presence that kept him from moving. The feeling of confinement always made his heart beat quicker, always made him remember the lonely dark when he’d almost cherished having someone nearby regardless of the pain they brought with them.

He never tried to pull himself free, watching in silence as the crowds thinned. Most demons didn’t leave through the antechamber — they simply vanished to another part of Hell, presumably to their own Kingdoms to ready themselves for whatever came next.

Beelzebub of Gluttony was the first King to exit. A bored conversation with one of zir Dukes led to an annoyed glance towards Lucifer. His first ally against Heaven, the first angel to Fall after him — Azram supposed ze must have a longer leash, because without waiting for permission, zir body scattered into bugs that crawled through the cracks in the wall behind zir, leaving zir Duke floundering alone for a moment before he, too, disappeared.

The rest left in their own good time. Asmodeus of Lust vanished next, while Tiamat of Envy simply faded into the background and then away. Belphegor of Sloth had to be not-too-politely reminded of a task to do in her Kingdom, and that left Azram alone with Mammon of Greed and the Morningstar.

Mammon watched him with many beady eyes, leaning forward in his smaller throne.

“What use d’you have for that?” he asked, looking for all the world like he wanted to surge forward as quickly as his six arms could scurry across the floor to grab Azram for himself.

In their admittedly-limited time knowing one another, Azram had started to think that Mammon must always look like that.

“Are you questioning me, Mammon?”

He grinned sharply. “Course not. S’your business, but I _am_ wondering. Looked more like Greed to me, what he did. Or Envy.”

“I suppose Tiamat would enjoy another demon at her disposal.”

“Always does,” Mammon said.

“And you?” Lucifer mused.

Mammon stretched out, limbs unnervingly long and lean. “Oh, I could find something for him.”

“And here I thought Beelzebub was the one with the appetite.”

A smirk. “Or Asmodeus.”

“Mmh.” Azram could hear the coldly serene smile in Lucifer’s voice. “Perhaps you’d best keep such musings to yourself, or I’ll rip those extra limbs of yours off one by one.”

Mammon gave a startled set of blinks, and Lucifer snapped, sending the King away.

The silence was heavier than the entire court’s attention had been. Apprehension sank like a stone in Azram’s stomach, and he swallowed around his anxiety. His heart jumped into his throat as Lucifer spoke which was undeniably worse. “You performed adequately.”

Azram didn’t know if he meant on Earth or here, where he’d been little more than a trophy. The last angel to Fall sat tamely at the feet of the first. The compliment felt dangerous, encouraging him to be proud in what he’d done while also admitting that it had been less than had been expected.

Really, Azram thought he’d done a remarkable job given what little he’d had to work with. He’d cut the population of humans down 25%, and Cain’s punishment was likely to lower it again. Adam and Eve were starting almost from scratch and had suffered such terrible loss.

But he wasn’t going to argue that point with Lucifer of all people. “I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

The hand in his hair tightened, pulling. “Oh, if you’d disappointed me, pet, you would not be sitting where you are.”

He had to raise himself up a bit to ease the tension, and he dragged his eyes up to where Lucifer’s face was set in a stony grimace. He dared to speak: “But I haven’t pleased you.”

The Devil’s lips quirked at the corners, and he glanced down. “And what would we do around here if I were easily impressed?”

“I don’t know,” he confessed after a moment’s consideration. “A lot less, I imagine.”

### 3962 BC

There were consequences.

They took a while to arrive, but Azram had been expecting them any day for over a year now, so it wasn’t really a surprise when a routine walk through Hell to deliver a message saw him being spat out in a place he didn’t recognize.

“Oh, dear,” he observed in the scant moments before the lights went out entirely.

He loathed the way his heart seized in his chest.

Several demons fell on him like a pack of hungry dogs. He swung his head, smirking with satisfaction as he felt ribs crack under the sudden collision with his horns. The victory was perhaps the shortest-lived he’d ever had as another demon wrenched his arms behind him. There was a distinct _pop_ as his shoulder dislocated and a shout burned in his throat until it was slashed open by another set of claws.

Silenced, he wheezed, shifting to try and relieve the sudden, intense pain in his injured shoulder, thrashing free.

“I’ll put you back where you belong,” one of them snarled.

Of all things, he wished his shoulder would fix itself. The rest was bearable, but—

He didn’t even have to finish the thought. Relief rushed up from his fingertips, the pain dissipating as the joint settled back in its socket.

That was right. Things were different now.

Flames gathered in the palm of his hand, and he turned, pushing them forward into the fragile corporation, feeling it shudder apart into ash under his touch. Just as the dark closed in again, Azram summoned more, using the flames to push the shadows and the demons away for a moment. He grinned, teeth sharp as he caught sight of their faces.

By the time he returned, he had healed himself, but it was far past the time he’d been expected.

Lucifer leaned on the arm of his throne, raising an unimpressed brow as Azram crossed the court and bowed courteously. “Forgive my tardiness, my Lord.”

“I am not in the habit of forgiving much, Azram.”

It would have been easy to tell him what had happened, to name the demons responsible.

But it would have been equally easy to tell him before about who had found him by the lake of fire, and, true to his word, he hadn’t breathed a word to anyone about who had found him. It was beneficial, really, to withhold a certain amount of information. Keeping the rulers of Hell too informed ran the risk of making him seem weak. Even if he was, it was best to keep it to himself.

Lucifer permitted him to return to his spot, and clawed fingers dragged tauntingly across his skull. He felt blood well at the cuts, but Lucifer neither made them deeper nor healed them. A bead ran like sweat down his temple, and he leaned into the Devil’s touch.

The key was not to flinch, to take what he’d been given and silently ask for more.

* * *

It was not the last time.

Increasingly, it became something of a game. What excuses could he make for himself, and what would Lucifer do to try and coax the truth from him without ever asking?

There was a slow cut from the corner of his mouth up almost to his ear. His eyes watered, but he smiled as sunnily as he could around small, hitching sobs.

“I ought to leave you like this,” Lucifer murmured, digging a claw into the corner of his jaw as he admired his handiwork.

Azram shuddered, lips parting and his jaw going slack.

With a click of his tongue and an agitated sigh, Lucifer pressed up until his mouth closed. He began to knit the muscles and skin back together until the only lingering points of interest were the two fingers tipped under his chin.

“Thank you, Morningstar.”

### 3961 BC

“What are you after?”

A calculated silence broke with a slight smile. “I want to be useful to you.”

Softly, “I don’t want your platitudes, pet.”

What did he want? He wanted a thousand things that he couldn’t find here. What could Lucifer give him? Freedom?

Would he?

As gently as he dared, he asked, “Then what do you want, my Lord?”

Fingers gnarled around the curve of a horn, pulling him close. His hands braced on either side of the throne, and he held utterly still, neither resisting nor pushing.

There was an electric current when Lucifer’s corporation touched his, a shock that traveled from the base of his horn to curl at his toes. He gasped, feeling the curve of his familiar smile for the first time, pressed to the soft skin of his neck.

“I haven’t decided yet.”

* * *

“You, there.”

Azram paused at the sound of a voice he knew but what had never spoken to him. Beelzebub watched him with a coldness that seemed to seep down into his bones.

“What _are_ you?”

There was something to be said about the King of Gluttony. Ze was blunt, efficient, in so many ways different from Lucifer that it was a wonder they’d ever gotten on as friends.

“A demon, Lord Beelzebub.”

Ze gave the faintest, mirthless smile. “Yeah, I figured that one out on my own, Azram.” Then, ze stalked closer, steps buzzing with intent. The edges of zir form fractured to surround him in an instant, drawing him into zir grasp. “But what _are you_? The sole demon in the Lord’s court…”

“I’m sure,” he said carefully, “that I don’t know what you mean.”

Beelzebub’s eyes were red. Tiny mouths started to nip at him as they swarmed, and zir’s voice was nearly a purr. “Are you a King he hasn’t told us about? Hm? Or is that just what you’re aiming for?”

Satan below, he didn’t want to be responsible for other demons. It was hard enough being responsible for himself, all things considered.

But Lucifer had never made his exact rank known. Granted, Azram had never asked, but given the way he withheld information on his own, it seemed unwise to demand answers from the Lord of Hell.

“I aim to serve my master. Nothing more.” His voice was tight, and it caught in his throat as ze started to dig into him. Yet, he held his tongue, closing his eyes as the low hum of insects turned to roaring in his ears. He couldn’t rule out that Lucifer had sent zir to talk to him. He couldn’t trust that things would be so straightforward as one person wanting an answer and demanding it. Even if it had been zir idea, power was always a factor, here. If Beelzebub thought he had more than zir, ze would stop at very little to claim it for zirself.

Ambiguity could be a weapon as much as anything else.

Before the bugs worked past the second layer of skin, Beelzebub healed him in a snap and disappeared just as quickly.

Azram rolled his shoulders before quickly shaking off the discomfort to continue on his way.

* * *

What could he get away with?

Lucifer observed the goings-on of the court with a bored expression, and Azram wondered. If he leaned into Lucifer’s legs where he sat — did he notice? Would he kick him away, if his hand wandered along the hem of Lucifer’s robe, if his fingers lingered on the delicate scales on the bone of his ankle?

What did he want from Lucifer? He didn’t know.

But he knew how to get it.

“Taking liberties, are we?” the Devil murmured.

“I can stop.” Apologies were useless. He could offer, and it could be accepted or refused. But the Lord of Hell said nothing.

His skin was warm when he wanted it to be.

* * *

His body felt heavy at the limbs, sluggish and lazy. Lucifer’s fingers had captured one of his sheep’s ears, rubbing the short, silky hair back and forth until his body ached with the desire to move. He managed to control himself until the last of the demons disappeared from the courtroom. His body arched with a stuttering jerk, and he gasped, pressing his face against Lucifer’s robe. He could taste brimstone and earth and some remnant of the sun.

Azram choked back a noise of want when Lucifer let go of his ear. The Devil’s hand wandered, raking through his curls, pulling tightly, forcing Azram’s head back. As he always had before, he submitted, letting Lucifer lead him, bend him, until his spine ached with the curve. He found himself looking up into the molten heat of Lucifer’s gaze.

Lucifer smiled slowly, all teeth and sharp angles.

One moment, he was sitting in his spot at Lucifer’s feet, and the next, he could feel pressure pinning his wings to something solid — a wall, the floor, it didn’t _matter_. They ached, his right wing forced out as far as the left and held in place however much he pulled against it, trying to tuck it in.

Then, Azram felt him: the light all-encompassing, the cold that burned, the way the world fell away at his mere presence.

“Lucifer,” he breathed. He reached out, fingers curling, pulling him closer. His physical form strained to hold together. “Oh, Lord, please—”

His lips didn’t sting. His tongue didn’t bleed. There was only the pressure of a mouth against his, _claiming_ so hot that he could melt.

He hadn’t been praying to Them. He had been pleading for this: the slow press of power _in_. Deeper, until he thought his corporation might split open and apart. Azram hissed shakily through his teeth. He grabbed whatever his hands could touch. Lucifer’s shoulders, his wings, his head — his fingers tangled in long hair, knotting in it, pulling. More. _More._

A sudden, harsh movement made scales cut into his body. He was suddenly aware that their clothes were gone, that Lucifer was carving him inch by inch to fit his body perfectly against his own. Black blood seeped in the space between them. They were more than flush, more than one but less than two, utterly consuming one another. This was how the universe was made: explosion after explosion, the purposeful collision of matter, creation from destruction.

“Please,” Azram shuddered forward, clasping tighter as Lucifer breathed like a bellows into him.

It hurt. Of course it hurt. Everything ached down to the center of him, piercing until it encountered the scars that surrounded every inch of his beating, bleeding heart.

It was _supposed_ to hurt.

“Oh—” he gasped wetly into Lucifer’s mouth. His fangs pierced Azram’s lip, tugging it into his own, pulling his head away from the solid force behind it with a bite. Azram whined in his throat. _More._ He could take more.

He _wanted_—

“There?” _Yes,_ there. He couldn’t form words, overwhelmed, but he could pray. “Hm?” Lucifer dipped his mouth, dragging it over his throat, and Azram’s head went back in sweet surrender. Yes, for Satan’s sake, _yes,_ until it tore him apart, _there_—!

His wings thrust back, body arched off the wall, shaking while Lucifer’s scales dug into his supple skin, while Lucifer surrounded him, moved within him, opened up a pit and filled it instantly again and again and again.

It was too much, and for a moment, the universe stopped breathing as both demon and Devil unwound in sudden, glorious violence.

Then, it was over. The freezing cold of Lucifer’s skin slotted neatly against his own, pulling every quake and shiver from him. His hands were braced on the wall, but power pressed at Azram’s wrists and wings, pinning all four of them with such force that his skin bruised, opened, bled. The marks might heal. Might.

Slowly, Azram opened his eyes. All over his exposed body, they fluttered open until he remembered that he should only have the two. He found the fire of Lucifer’s gaze burning holes into him, and he nosed forward, searching for the heat of his mouth, needing.

He choked back a whimper of loss as Lucifer began to pull himself back into his own body. Azram felt loose, empty, yearning for the presence and power that had filled him until his seams felt fit to burst.

Lucifer smiled again before claiming his lips. He breathed into Azram’s open, wordlessly-pleading mouth, “Good, pet. Very good.”

Wildfire coursed through him, and Azram came again.


	6. the flood.

### 3004 BC

This was normal: sitting at Lucifer’s feet, a participant largely in name only. He held his tongue and kept his thoughts close unless they were asked for. He didn’t shy from attention — that would defeat the point. He was an object of interest, a trophy. He knew his place.

Oh, but he was _enjoying_ this.

Barbus couldn’t look at him. He’d tried only to be confronted with who Azram sat before. Lucifer’s light was as aggressive as the Devil himself, and Barbus couldn’t withstand it. His head was bowed as he spoke, giving the latest report from Earth.

Heaven was planning something big.

* * *

This was normal.

His body was shackled, bound in hellforged iron at the wrists and ankles which were anchored to the floor. Lucifer’s hand in his hair was gentle but heavy, leading his head down until it was bowed, curls falling forward, a curtain between his face and the room. When Lucifer released him, he stayed where he’d been put, utterly unable to move.

“Who was he, hm?”

Words had been sealed away, the truth left to rot on his useless tongue. It was less important than this lesson Lucifer was imparting on him. ‘Mine,’ it said without words, as viciously jealous as Envy, more desperately selfish than Greed, as punishing as unslaked Lust.

“Who was the demon you were _staring_ at?”

Long fingers trailed over his neck, claws tripping down the column of his throat. They pressed into his flesh, loosing a flow of blood that slowly parted, twisted, solidified into another chain that would rip him open if he strained against it.

“Not that it matters, does it?”

Azram couldn’t speak, but he mouthed the word anyway. _‘No.’ _The word was all he could think; every sense was overwhelmed with an acute sharpness, too much, pain well past unbearable, but what choice did he have? He could go nowhere, escape nothing.

Lucifer’s hand, wet with his blood, laid on his nape before he dragged his nails down between his shoulders. The faintest push under them, and his wings spread open as far as they could each individually go. Lucifer ran his hands along them, sending shivers down Azram’s body. When he reached the break in Azram’s right wing, he neither hesitated to touch it nor lingered, treating it as if it were any other part of his topography. Another broken piece of him, another scar, albeit the only one he hadn’t left himself.

“Does it hurt?”

_‘Yes,’_ uttered Azram soundlessly.

Terribly gently, he murmured, “I can’t hear you, pet.”

The chain embedded in his neck tore through him as he forced himself to nod, straining against the power holding him still. Fire crawled through his veins, down his spine and out to every limb, punishing him for the audacity. He could feel it in every individual barb on his wings.

Lucifer’s hands were a cruel comfort as they spread in his feathers, and Azram pushed his wings into his touch, searching.

There was an audible smile in his voice. “Good.”

He raked his hands forward, displacing feathers until his fingers could wrap around the top between the bend and the shoulder. Azram arched minutely. The sound of his breathing echoed off the courtroom walls, suffocating in its repetition.

Azram stared unseeing at the floor.

It was like being struck by lightning: relentless, destructive energy coursed through him in a matter of moments.

In the first, Lucifer brutally severed his wings from his body. A fit of feathers, a burst of blood, a silent scream — nothing could have prepared him for it. Neither the first time nor the dozen times after it.

In the second, his body burst apart. He had been pushed too far, and his celestial form being ripped apart finally cracked him in half. Azram shattered into fragments which started to scatter to some far corner of Hell to reform.

In the third, Lucifer pulled him together. He was reassembled in an instant, wings trembling in Lucifer’s hands, shaking down to his spine where he was chained, had been chained, would be chained again.

Should he be relieved when his wings were released or should he be worried about the easy way the Devil reached into him? He began to unravel, spinning so violently that he could have carved a tenth circle of Hell before being completely undone, unwritten, unmade. Fangs dug into the meat of his shoulder, and Lucifer pulled him back into him, pulling the chains taut to take and take and _take._

Light burst forth where they touched. Lucifer created galaxies within him then let them collapse, supernova after supernova wracking through him until all that was left was a black hole consuming anything it could reach.

Azram’s head fell against the floor, blood dripping from what might have once been a mouth.

The word rasped within him, without him, so loud that he was certain all of Hell must have heard it. _‘More.’_

Despite what followed, he was certain that Lucifer was pleased.

* * *

Lucifer never healed him with a snap. It was always a slow reverse of the damage he’d caused, pulling him piece by piece back into something resembling a whole. Sometimes, he went all the way, healing Azram until all that remained were the scars that he’d intended to leave. Other times, Lucifer only pulled him back from the brink of discorporation or worse.

Perhaps ‘worse’ wasn’t the word.

Lucifer could unmake him and quite easily, but Azram wasn’t naive enough to believe that he would. It would be merciful to free him from all of this: the game he had played with Lucifer for the past thousand years, the nagging sense of failed responsibility he felt every time he saw where the human souls were kept and tortured, the knowledge that eternity stretched before him without reprieve.

The Lord of Hell was not known for his mercy and what he was truly capable of was so much worse than destruction.

“I want you to return to Earth.”

The shackles unlocked. The chains crumbled into cinders and ash, swept away into nothing as Azram slowly sat up. An earthquake trembled through him, his thoughts fractured and hands shaking as he searched for his center. “Because of…” He waved a hand vaguely towards the center of the room where Barbus had stood to give his report, “all that?”

Lucifer’s voice dripped with malice, “Does it matter why?”

Azram glanced at him calmly despite the rapid sprint of his heart. “Of course not. I’d go to the Gates of Heaven at your command, but I thought we ought to be clear about what you wanted me to do up there.”

“Mm. Cause some trouble. Make sure God know that Their Plan isn’t going to go off without a hitch.” Lucifer brushed a claw over Azram’s mouth, and his lips parted obediently. “Don’t disappoint me.”

His breathing shook and he murmured, “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

* * *

Azram hadn’t been beneath the open sky in over nine-hundred years. It felt too large for him, too exposed. The idea of God watching him had once been a source of comfort, but he couldn’t understand how. If They saw him now, what could They possibly think? Would They stop him? Smite him? A shiver ran down his spine, the faintest traces of anxiety writhing in his gut. He wanted to blend into the shift of shadows, disappearing as easily as any natural predator.

He couldn’t hide from Them, if They were looking for him, but he could suppress his demonic traits. His tail disappeared with relative ease. His ears twitched and changed back into something human-shaped, and then they twitched again. His horns took longer, but they slowly uncurled and shrank, sinking into the mess of his curls. Azram’s eyes ached as he tried to hide his pupils, to turn them back into circles on the physical plane. For a long moment, there was a standstill. Azram struggled against the infernal force that made him a demon while his hands curled into fists at his sides, nails biting his skin.

It was the feeling of ice breaking underfoot. First, a tiny weakness formed as his pupils shrank to near pinpricks. Then, as cracks spidered outward, his pupils widened, almost reverting to their now-natural shape. Azram gave a slow roll of his shoulders and forced his will forward, shattering the barrier and plunging forward. His pupils blew out in response, black almost swallowing his irises until they shrank to something resembling normal.

It took willpower not to let them slip.

Azram had willpower to spare.

* * *

There was a boat.

It honestly seemed a bit of a disservice to call it a ‘boat.’ It was practically a colossus compared to the little fishing skiffs and rafts that had been its ancestors. Even Azram managed to feel dwarfed by its presence. Clouds gathered overhead, churning and dark, and where there were gaps, sunbeams fell onto the land below.

There was a gathering of humans watching nearby as animals wandered, two-by-two, towards the lowered door. Azram could feel the derision amid the murmuring, the flashes of fear when predators wandered too far from where they ought to be boarding, the low level of foreboding that came with curiosity. The humans didn’t believe Noah had spoken to anyone holy much less been ordered to build this overwrought monument to survival, but they couldn’t help but wonder. And within them, they carried an instinct as old as humanity itself: the vague, worrying sense of oncoming divine wrath.

Animals might flee from a typhoon or tsunami, but no creature alive was more finely tuned to dread the mercurial whims of God than humanity.

It all depended on what storms they had been designed to survive.

Azram contemplated the crowd with a slow sweep of his eyes, prowling at the edges until he felt the unmasked presence of an angel. It nagged at his consciousness, a vague sense of relief that unsettled him more than other demons had for centuries. His brow furrowed, and he slowly honed in on the feeling.

It took him a moment to recognize Corvai. He perched on a rather large rock, sandaled feet dangling inches off the ground. A staff lay across his lap, his hands white-knuckled as he clung to it. His golden eyes didn’t linger on the Ark or its architects. He didn’t pay attention to the animals that meandered in a harmony reminiscent of the Garden towards the boat. Instead, he watched the ordinary people, throat bobbing as he swallowed around unvoiced concerns.

Angelic doubt was quite heady.

Interesting.

It would be a lie to say that he felt no trepidation as he approached. In fact, all he could think of was Corvai moving in lightning-fast flashes, always too close for comfort, blazing with divine wrath, with a mercy and compassion for fragile humanity that he could have easily used to tear Azram apart. But whatever he was here to oversee — he could hardly interrupt in order to fuss with a demon.

He took advantage of his distraction to get close without notice, settling in near Corvai. “Angel,” he said.

“Demon,” Corvai sneered, practically baring his teeth. “Should’ve known you lot couldn’t stay away.”

“You have to admit, this is rather too large to ignore.” Azram kept a keen eye on Corvai, searching for even the faintest hint that he might rise and attack despite orders. Corvai didn’t move. “What’s the plan then?”

“The plan with the Ark?”

A faint smile. “Hardly expect you to explain the other one. Your head might cave in trying to comprehend the ineffability of it all.” If there was a bitterness to his voice, it could hardly be helped.

“Why should I tell you?” Corvai glanced at him out of the corner of his eye.

“Oh, that’s quite simple,” Azram said brightly. “If you don’t, I’ll make it collapse in on itself while everyone’s on board.”

Corvai’s fangs unsheathed in an instant, and his eyes began to glow gold as he turned fully to face Azram. “I’ll send you straight back to Hell. Hand to God.”

Azram poised his fingers to snap, raising his eyebrows meaningfully as he spoke. “There’s no need for that. If you tell me, let me have a little bit of fun, it’ll all be smooth sailing.”

Corvai snarled, “As I recall, last time someone trusted you, it didn’t work out too well for them.”

“No?” he asked. “Did something happen to Cain?”

Corvai’s hands shifted on his staff, and Azram tilted his head, almost prompting him, daring him to do it. Strike him down. He wouldn’t be gone long.

Instead, Corvai sighed, shoulders coming up defensively as he stared ahead. “Great, big, fuck-off flood. Noah and his family’ll be safe, but everyone else… Better learn how to swim.”

“Oh, dear.” He lowered his hand slowly. “Everyone?”

“Everyone hereabouts. Mesopotamia.”

“I see.” It seemed cruel even by demonic standards. “Why?”

“S’to teach ‘em a lesson.”

“They can’t very well adjust their behavior if they’re dead.”

Corvai lifted his hands off the staff, waggling his fingers towards the Ark. “_They_ can learn. Pass it on to the next generation.”

There was a sudden shriek of laughter, and both celestial beings turned their heads to see where the children were running, playing, _living_.

Azram’s brow creased. “Even the children?”

Corvai swallowed thickly. “Yeah.” He took a breath, started to say something else, but the words caught in his throat, and the staff creaked as he wrung it between his hands. He settled on saying, “Yeah,” again.

It was almost as if Heaven was trying to make it impossible to outdo them. Or, perhaps, God was finally showing the world how careless and cruel They really were just before wiping the evidence out of existence. “Dear me.”

“Don’t act like you care. Not about any of them.”

He scoffed. “I’m a demon; I’m not heartless.”

Corvai’s cheek twitched, eyes narrowing as he held himself back. He lasted only a few moments before the words burst out of him. “You taught them how to _kill_. Would’ve been bad enough to do it on your own, but you—” He laughed dryly and ran a hand back through his hair. “So yeah, y’know. I think maybe you— you don’t _get_ to have an opinion about this.”

Azram couldn’t tamp down the bitter amusement. Not entirely. His lips twitched, curving into a slight and condescending smile. “Hypocritical, isn’t it?”

“Excuse me?” Corvai hissed.

“I caused the death of one human. At a pivotal moment in history, true, when there weren’t very many of them, but Abel was only one.” He spread his hands, indicating the crowd around them. “There are hundreds here and in the surrounding area that’ll be wiped out by your flood. I may very well be the godfather of murder, but I fail to see how I’m the villain, here.” 

“You’re responsible for every single murder that’s followed.”

The annoyance dug deeper. “Say that I am. Who’s responsible for disease?”

“How’s that relevant?”

“You’re a Seraph. Your choir is full of healers. How are you not responsible for every human that’s withered away, sick and miserable and long before their time?”

Corvai leaned closer, voice heated and low, “We can’t go fixing every human problem. They chose that when your lot tempted them to the apple!”

Azram chuckled humorlessly. “Interesting, how it’s humanity’s fault, or Hell’s, but never Heaven’s. Never God’s, even though They made humans with free will, They let the war drag on to a truce, They have Their Great and Ineffable Plan that requires so much pain and suffering.” He pushed himself up from his seat, taking a deep breath in the hopes that it would stave off the anger.

Before his feet touched the ground, Corvai was between him and the crowd. He stood straight and tall, eyes narrowed, the wooden staff held like a weapon. “I won’t let you harm them.”

“You don’t have to, since your side’s doing a bang-up job without my help.”

He could feel Corvai’s conviction wavering, righteousness flickering like the last lick of flame before a blaze went out for good.

The idea sank its teeth into him so deeply that he couldn’t easily shake it. Perhaps he didn’t have to tempt the humans this time. Perhaps there was a greater evil he could be committing. Lucifer’s instructions hadn’t demanded human suffering, after all. Cause a little trouble, sow some discord. Fuck with the Plan.

“You know, Corvai,” Azram pondered, allowing his gaze to wander back to the crowd. “It wouldn’t be hard to hide some of them, would it?” Corvai cast an anguished look outward before he seemed to remember himself, recoiling. Azram pressed, “I mean, the nook where the unicorns should go is going to be unfortunately unoccupied.”

Corvai’s face scrunched up. “Unicorns—?”

Azram waved his hand as thunder rolled over the land. The first, fat drops of rain landed on his skin. He hardly felt them. When the thunder began to fade, there was a shrill whinny. Azram looked back at Corvai’s face, savoring the moment as the angel watched one of the unicorns bolt off without warning into the wilderness. Corvai made a strangled noise, but after only one step towards where it had disappeared, he stopped moving.

He faced Azram with desperation twisting his face and his heart. Doubt and uncertainty and _anger_ coiled around him, squeezing the air from the moment as Azram allowed the urgency to set in. Corvai could easily teleport the wayward unicorn onto the Ark, but he could just as easily choose to save humans and stow them away in the newly-vacant stall. Azram watched impassively as the choice tore Corvai apart. He already knew what Corvai would decide. However much he might claim to care for humans, Heaven would always come first. If They ordered him to wipe humanity out one-by-one, he would. The sooner he stopped lying about it, the sooner he could anchor his sanctimoniousness to something more believable.

After all, however virtuous compassion and mercy were supposed to be, where had they gotten Azram at the end of the day?

Corvai’s eyes were wild. Azram had no sooner folded his hands behind his back, a smile tugging on his lips, crinkling the corners of his eyes than Corvai ground out, “Fine.”

Azram raised his eyebrows as Corvai clicked his fingers.

Abruptly, the distant peals of laughter stopped just before another rumble of thunder drowned out the rest of the noise.

Azram chanced a look, certain — absolutely certain beyond a shadow of a doubt — but the children were gone. They’d vanished into thin air, and none of the humans noticed. Azram could feel the hole in their awareness, a kindness that would keep them from thinking about the missing children as the waters rose and pulled them down.

He blinked slowly, pupils slanting horizontally as he tried to pull apart reality, desperate to see what plane Corvai had banished them to in order to assuage his guilt. Perhaps he’d flung them to the far side of the universe where he wouldn’t have to watch them die. But when Azram finally found them, they were on the Ark, sound asleep, miraculously unnoticed.

“What?” It was the only word that came to mind. He didn’t understand. It was unthinkable that an angel would so blatantly defy Heavenly decree, that he would choose to answer the obvious temptation he’d been given even if it was, in every way, the right thing to do. Azram frowned, turning his attention back Corvai.

Corvai’s rage hadn’t dulled. If anything, he seemed to glow with it now, stepping between Azram and the Ark, anticipating retaliation. He waited for a catch that Azram would demand from the humans with the fullest intent to pay for it himself. Strange. So incredibly strange.

“I choose them. They’re _innocent_. If, if unicorns are the bloody price that has to be paid, then _fine_. S’that what you wanted, eh? Wanted to make a devil’s deal with an angel?”

He hadn’t. He had, if anything, expected to leave Corvai stewing in his doubt — assuming he had the barest hint of a conscience — where he could pick at it later, but Azram felt that doubt burn away, replaced with the quiet, consuming fury. It certainly wasn’t Wrath; violence was a last resort rather than the immediate solution. Azram peered up at him, teasing apart the turmoil of emotions to find where Corvai was ready to protect his new wards at any and all cost to himself. It was a nauseatingly pure sentiment. Azram watched him almost expectantly, feeling the faintest disappointment that it would be over so soon. The hole in the Earth would open up to swallow him whole, wouldn’t it? He would be punished.

Corvai’s voice was a stuttering hiss. “Ss— say something!”

Azram tried to gather his thoughts, but they darted from his grasp, flitting just out of reach. His mind was annoyingly scattered. “I didn’t make a deal. I gave you a choice.” He forced a smile, giving up on understanding the angel for the time being in order to deliver his verdict. “You chose wrong.”

“Fuck you; I chose right.”

Corvai vanished in the next flash of lightning, and Azram frowned briefly before following after him.

The Ark felt a lot less massive within the holds and stalls than it had looked from the outside. Torches flickered down the dim hallway, barely doing a thing to light the way, but he supposed being submerged in darkness was the least of the animals’ worries.

A pity he couldn’t say the same.

There was already a musty smell gathering from the motley collection of animals, the wood that had been used to build the Ark, and the hay that littered the floor. From the dark, there came noises: cows lowing, sheep bleating, lions chuffing before a distinctly divine feeling settled on the Ark as a whole, and the animals drifted into a near-daze. Azram shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, wondering if whoever was in charge of the miracle would notice the demon in the thick of it, but there was no smiting, no sudden eviction from his body back to Hell.

In the stall where the unicorns ought to have been, there was an angel sitting against the wall and almost a dozen sleeping human children. It wasn’t enough that Corvai had brought them, but they had blankets and pillows. Most of them had some form of toy clutched in their hands, close to their chests, the last memories of the life that was being torn from them.

Corvai looked wretched but glowed gently, radiating comfort for the sleeping humans.

“What do you want?” he demanded, his voice markedly softer as if he was trying not to wake his new charges.

“Not to be stuck out there in that.” Azram waved a hand upwards to indicate the storm as the rain began to patter harder on the wood, echoing dully through the Ark. The Heavens opened up.

“S’not what I meant. You’ve gotta— whatever it is you’re after, it has to be worse than this.” He peered up through wavy strands of dark hair. It was at this moment that Azram realized he had left the staff behind, that Corvai’s hands were utterly empty and bare. “If it’s them, if— if you _try_ to harm them, I’ll bless the rain and throw you out into it, I _swear_—”

“I’m not going to hurt them, Corvai.”

He sneered, “Why not? Abel wasn’t much older.”

“I suppose he wasn’t.” Abel hadn’t been a child, but what difference was there really? Surely no more than a decade. “But think of it this way: your side wanted Noah and his family to be the last humans on this part of the Earth for whatever reason. Now there’s more of them. Temptation accomplished.”

“Yeah? Tempting who?”

The keen way he watched Azram’s face told him that Corvai already knew the answer.

Well. Two could play at that game. “Would you rather I chose a human? As I recall, you were cross when I did that, as well.”

“Almost like I’d prefer you didn’t tempt anyone.”

“Then discorporate me.”

“No.”

He reeled. “Excuse me?”

“We start fighting here, and the Ark could fall apart. They,” he gestured towards the sleeping children, “could wake up, or— or the others could realize they’re here, the animals could get upset, _whatever_. It’s not worth it. So if you wanna go relive your glory days from the war and fight an angel, you’re gonna have to find someone other than me.”

The Ark rocked beneath his feet as the rising waters finally caused it to buoy upward. Azram almost stumbled and, instead, slipped into the stall and sank to sitting.

“What d’you think you’re doing?”

“If you’re not going to attack me, and I’m not going to attack you, I suppose we’ll just have to get through this in miserable company.” He settled back uneasily, wary, but Corvai only clicked his fingers to swing the stall door shut. Azram tried not to feel trapped. He asked, “Any idea how long this is supposed to last?”

“Forty days and forty nights.”

“Oh, is that all?”

“S’posed to be beautiful on the other side,” Corvai mumbled, tucking his hair behind his ear only for it to fall free and in front of his face again. “Once the waters go down. Gonna be a big—” He drew a vague half-circle in the air. “Big _thing_. To say They’ll never do it again.”

Azram looked down at the humans and then at Corvai again. “And the humans will believe that?”

Corvai shrugged. “Not sure it matters if they do or not.”

Azram tilted his head, considering before he blinked at the realization. “No, I suppose it doesn’t.”

* * *

“Did you mean it?”

Azram had been miles away in thought, perusing what he could feel from the humans upstairs. Apparently, the existential crises brought on by the flood was a breeding ground for Lust and some latent feelings of Greed that came with having this little corner of the world all to themselves. Noah was engaging in some rather interesting Gluttony involving fermented fruit, but before Azram could pry deeper, Corvai’s voice pulled him back to the stall.

“Pardon?”

“D’you not know what happened to Cain?”

“As I recall,” Azram said dryly, “I was discorporated before I could find out.”

“Someone didn’t just bring you an update?”

It wouldn’t do to give him too much information. Corvai didn’t need to know how little demonic surveillance there’d been on Earth at the time. “I had the whole humanity thing settled. No one came to follow up on my work as they were busy elsewhere.” He shrugged. “We weren’t expecting the inconvenience of discorporation.”

“Funny. Seemed to me like that was what you wanted.”

“Could hardly resist making an angel Wrathful.”

Corvai glared. It was particularly effective given that he often failed to blink, which was something Azram had noticed almost straight away. Azram was _used_ to being blinked at. He usually had a great, blinding, sublime force just behind him. “Enlighten me,” Azram said, wondering idly if he’d bother.

Corvai had the bare minimum decency to look conflicted about it before he broke. “Cain was cast out.”

Azram’s jaw tightened, and he tried not to think of the slow fading of God’s light, the feeling of being _ripped_ from Their grace.

Corvai didn’t notice and continued, rambling. “He was— he was _marked_. So humans would know what he’d done. Blessed or, or cursed with a long life.” He slumped against the wall. “Don’t know when he died. If he died.”

“I’m sure he did.” Azram wasn’t sure where the words came from because now that he _thought_ about it, he had never actually seen Cain’s soul in Hell. “If not, I’m sure the flood got him.”

Corvai still looked thoughtful, but he kept said thoughts to himself.

* * *

They spoke often, though there wasn’t much to talk about. It led to a lot of retreading old ground, accusations, hostility.

“Cain had the poorer offering, but it was only the once—”

“Angel,” Azram said, voice clipped, “Cain did the best with the task he’d been given.” He gestured upward, “How could They, in all Their infinite wisdom, expect him to give more than he had? How’d They not know it would _hurt_?”

“Humans are supposed to hurt sometimes.”

He scoffed. “They hadn’t been around long enough to know that—”

“Ssshh,” Corvai hissed suddenly, leaning forward, eyes staring straight ahead as he listened.

Azram could hear it too: the slow stomp of uncertain feet down the corridor between stalls.

“Hide,” Corvai whispered heatedly and vanished in an instant.

“Why?” he asked, his voice similarly lowered.

A black snake’s head popped out of the hay, dark coils undulating beneath the surface. In the torchlight, his scales seemed to gleam with undertones of gold. “Because,” he hissed, “the whole lot of the humans have been blessed. He’ll overlook them, but we’re too— too…” he trailed off, searching for the word. “Big. Big source of miracles.”

Azram rolled his eyes. “Fine, _fine_.” He hadn’t been in a purely animal shape since he’d been with Cain, and it took him a moment to find it again, but he transformed soon enough. He lay in front of the stall door to keep it from opening, subtly wedging one side of his head so that his horns were braced against the door.

A light passed in front of the stall door, and the steps paused.

With a low grumble, the human continued on his way. Azram didn’t relax until he heard him tromping back up the steps.

“You’re a sheep,” Corvai said, slithering too closely for comfort.

It had been a thousand years, give or take a few hours, since he’d been face to face with the serpent in Eden, and it turned out that it was still too soon for his tastes. “Camouflage,” he said.

“But a _sheep_?”

“Not what you were expecting?” Azram observed mildly before slamming his teeth together inches from Corvai’s face. The angel recoiled with another hiss. Azram huffed. “Good.”

* * *

It turned out that they took up much less space like this, which meant that they had more room to move around if needed. Azram had centuries of practice with staying still, exercising patience, but Corvai slithered and climbed the walls, pacing as good as his form would allow him before he’d thump back down onto the floor.

“Not to be contrary,” Azram ventured one day after Corvai had exhausted his options and lay curled into a tight coil, tongue flicking lazily out and eyes boring a hole into Azram. “But have you thought about what comes next?”

“Excuse me?”

“The children.” Immediately, Corvai lifted his head, writhing tighter. Always so defensive with the least amount of provocation. “You can’t expect to just hand them off to Noah and have them be brought up properly.”

“I could,” he mused. “Could tell him they’re a gift from Heaven.”

Azram was thankful for his inability to smile. “I don’t think that would be wise.”

“Why do you care, demon?”

Azram blinked and crossed his forelegs before laying his head on them. “I’ll have wasted so much time up here if you wander off to let them be killed or worse.”

Corvai stared. “Worse?”

Azram continued blithely. “Of course, if you don’t want the responsibility, it can’t be that hard and I’m sure I could—”

Corvai _squawked_. “I’m not leaving them with _you_!”

“Then _you’re_ going to take care of them?”

“Yes!” Corvai hissed with a conviction that settled Azram’s concerns.

Azram’s ears flicked, and he glanced at the indignant Seraph who soon slithered off under the hay in a vague attempt to be alone. Azram wondered if Corvai realized that the conversation had gone the way he’d intended from the start.

* * *

For the second time in living memory, he was beneath an open sky. The clouds had dispersed, and the sun shone brightly down on hills and mountains with their valleys still filled with water. It would take time to disappear, for Earth to return to what passed for normal now.

Azram supposed the rainbow was beautiful. It was rather ruined by the bloated bodies, the remnants of a now-dead civilization, and the slumbering children still hidden in the depths of the Ark. Moving them would be up to Corvai once the last of the animals departed and the humans who were meant to live stopped watching the Ark. The long angel stretched his limbs for the first time in several weeks, staring pointedly upwards rather than down at the destruction his God had made.

Azram, on the other hand, couldn’t look away.

“Y’know,” Corvai said, “I don’t think I ever got your name.”

He hadn’t, and Azram wasn’t sure at that moment that he wanted Corvai to have it.

“I should go report in before anyone notices how long I’ve been gone.”

It was already far too late for that. Azram could only hope that the death of unicorns and the way he’d undermined God’s Plan would be enough to convince Lucifer that it had been worth it. Mercy would be a hard selling point, but Azram was certain that he could find a way to twist the truth to his liking.

If not, there was always another way to regain Lucifer’s favor.

“Be seeing you, Corvai.”

“Wait—!” 

The word hardly reached his ears before Azram vanished.


	7. the city.

### 2304 BC

He really couldn’t afford this kind of distraction.

Azram kept his steps even, his head down, refusing to so much as twitch towards the conversation he desperately wanted to overhear as he neared Lucifer’s dais. He smiled, bowed, and spoke over the gossip as if they were the only two demons in the entire courtroom. “The message has been delivered to Asmodeus, Morningstar.”

Lucifer’s fire-bright eyes lingered on the bruises around his throat before they fell to his wrists. He would likely catalog them later, finding all the places where Asmodeus’s tentacles had wrapped around him, pushed into his body in exquisite torment. Lucifer would want to reclaim Azram’s corporation for himself, remind Azram precisely who he now and would always belong to. Asmodeus might receive a punishment of his own, but it wasn’t for Azram to know. If he had before, it certainly hadn’t been enough to deter him or any of the other Kings from inflicting themselves on Azram in the manner of their choosing. He was sure that there were rules in place, but they were Lucifer’s, not his.

“Sit,” Lucifer said tersely. His face almost looked impassive and unaffected, but Azram had spent a millennium learning to read him. The intimacy was a double-edged blade, as dangerous to wield as it was to be on the other side which made him all the more nervous as he obeyed.

“Corvai.” The name had reached his ears within seconds of stepping into the courtroom, and when he heard it again, Azram was thankful that he’d thought to force his ears back into a human shape since the last time they’d manifested. They couldn’t betray him like this. “Seems like he’s everywhere in Mesopotamia. Shinar. Whatever the humans are calling it now.”

“What, that little star-spinning Seraph?” Derisive, “What can _he_ do?”

“Enough, apparently.”

Azram tilted his head back against the arm of the throne, pointedly avoiding watching where the Kingdom of Envy gathered and chatted among themselves. Gossips, the lot of them were, but they usually _knew_ what they were talking about.

He couldn’t afford to think about angels with hearts so fragile that they could still be broken.

He couldn’t afford to wonder if Corvai had hardened in the last seven-hundred years.

And yet.

* * *

If Azram had learned nothing else in his time in Hell, he had learned patience. He knew to count the steps, practice the dance, bide his time until the perfect opportunity arose. He moved with caution and decisiveness both; he could neither jump in before the time was right, nor could he afford to hesitate once he had begun.

First, he knew he needed Lucifer alone. The Lord of Hell had created private rooms for himself not long after he’d carved the circles of Hell in the midst of his Fall. They were the one place in the universe where he could go if he didn’t want to be disturbed by anyone for any reason, and they were a familiar part of Azram’s prison. The first time Azram had returned to the courtroom, used and bruised and choosing not to hide it, he had been brought here, not to be healed but to be mastered.

The luxury of privacy opened up a wealth of opportunities.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Lucifer asked as though he didn’t know, as if he weren’t smiling, daring Azram to follow through.

Azram bent over him, thick thighs bracketing Lucifer’s thin hips, his hands braced on the unicornhair blanket beneath them. The grim trophy glistened in Lucifer’s radiance, the last remaining proof that unicorns had ever existed on God’s green Earth.

“Serving my Lord and master,” Azram murmured. He waved his hand, banishing their clothes. Immediately, he could feel the way Lucifer’s scales dug into his flesh. Lucifer cut him open with every writhing movement of his body, pressing up into Azram. He was always goading, always entertained — away from the eyes of others, in this absolute solitude — by letting Azram push back and, of course, punishing him accordingly.

Lucifer fit his hands into the soft, giving flesh of his thighs, forcing them wider. He dug his fingers into the cuts there. Azram gasped, smiled, pushing into the cruel touch. It hurt, yes, but it _felt_— Satan, whatever he did always felt like so _much_.

He’d thought many times over the last thousand years to ask why Lucifer would ever be jealous. How could anyone in the universe possibly compare to him?

But Envy had its uses, and Azram was not the sort of demon to give away a tool in his arsenal without good cause.

Azram didn’t quite have the power to pull Lucifer apart, to give him the sort of galactic pleasure he gave to Azram on a regular basis. But he didn’t need to.

“Make an effort for me,” he murmured, sliding a hand down Lucifer’s body. The rough scales cut him, and he allowed want to bleed into them both. “Let me take you.”

Lucifer purred, “Insatiable.”

Azram tilted his head forward, almost nodding.

He felt the Devil’s cock appear between them, hard and hot and nudging impatiently against him. For a moment, Azram didn’t bother to form genitals of his own, pressing down against him in a slow, sinful grind of his hips. Lucifer dug his claws into the meat of his hips, yanking him abruptly down. “You should choose,” he said with an undeniable steel in his voice, “before _I_ choose for you.”

Azram manifested a vulva, and Lucifer released his grip, sliding his hands back down to caress the cuts on Azram’s thighs as he watched and waited.

Lucifer liked a lot of particular things when it came to Lust in its many forms. But he always seemed brighter, more attentive, more _excited_ when he got to watch Azram impale himself on his cock. Even feeling the heat and heft of it in his hand made Azram’s pulse quicken, his body shivering with the urge to flinch away. The Devil’s dick was huge, which wasn’t a surprise. Lucifer’s sin, was, after all, Pride. But the heat was inhuman, as if Azram were holding newly hellforged iron in his bare hands. He had to choose to open himself up to it and take that flame into himself. By controlling his descent, it was up to him to choose to take _more_.

Even the head nudging his folds was too much. Azram’s breath caught hard in his chest, and his thighs quivered as he rocked his hips. His body twitched away to Lucifer’s amusement.

He didn’t offer to take the choice away, to do it himself. Those weren’t the rules they were playing with right now.

Azram forced the feeling of _want_ forward. His body warmed, and there was a low, soft hiss as he got wetter, dripping onto Lucifer’s cock. He slowly lowered himself, biting back a whine. It pressed inside him, splitting him open wide as he gasped and arched as sweat beaded and rolled down the slope of his spine. It _burned_, an inferno that raged higher, reaching from where Lucifer was buried in Azram’s wet heat.

His soaking cunt already ached and clutched tightly around the intrusion. His clit throbbed, desperate to be touched. Azram ignored it to focus on the slow rise, letting Lucifer’s cock slip out inch by inch before he sank back down with an utterly indecent moan.

Lucifer moved, thrusting harmoniously upward, and Azram choked on the word he’d done his level best _never_ to say. “No.”

Beneath him, Lucifer stilled. “What did you say to me, pet?”

“Let— Let _me_.” His heart thudded in his chest, and the air in his lungs seemed to carry a weight that it hadn’t before. It grounded him unbearably to this calculated gamble that could still turn against him. “Let me take it. You.” Azram was babbling, feverish, moving faster when he wasn’t overwhelmed. “Fuck, _fuck_, let me fuck myself _apart_.”

Lucifer clicked his tongue, but his voice was husky. “You’re already struggling.”

Azram laughed, breathless and feeling near-delirious. “As if you don’t _live_ to see me struggle.” He leaned forward, his hands on Lucifer’s body, nails biting into his chest as he clawed for purchase before using the new point of leverage to fuck himself harder. Azram could feel desire _roaring_ inside of him, clambering to take _more_. “You chose me. You— mmnh, _me_. Let me be _worthy_, mmy Lord. Mine. My—”

His coherence burned away with the rest of him. Azram was little more than a writhing bundle of nerves and desperate need.

Which was just what Lucifer wanted from him.

Azram threw his head back as he came. His corporal form fractured at the edges, struggling to hold together.

One moment, he was riding the high that came with using the Devil to get himself off, and the next, he had the unicornhair blanket rubbing the skin against his back raw. One of Lucifer’s hands curled around a horn, and the other grabbed onto a wing, pulling him back in a tight arch as Lucifer fucked mercilessly into him. Sensitive and twitching, Azram cried out in pain, every thrust wrenching another noise from him.

“You,” Lucifer hissed, heated. His scales were _red_ with the fire within them, cutting into their familiar grooves and cauterizing the wounds the second they opened. “You, my sweet pet,” and though it sounded like a threat, Azram almost _smiled_.

“Me?” He didn’t dare to reach out for Lucifer again. Instead, he clawed at the blanket as his body gave way to the sweet suffering only Lucifer could give him.

_“You,”_ Lucifer repeated, accusing as his cock punched deeper and deeper into Azram’s body. It was far more than a human would have been able to take.

Azram came again. It rolled through him like a sudden burst of thunder, overpowering and eventually rumbling into the distance. Just when he thought it might let up, Lucifer forced _power_ into him, grinning wildly as it overwhelmed in an instant, another orgasm wracking through his body as Lucifer forcefully held him together.

It wasn’t the last.

* * *

There was always a mess when Lucifer was done with him. Azram always had new wounds, was always covered in sweat, blood, and cum.

He’d clean up the fluids and leave the injuries if Lucifer didn’t. Healing injuries caused by powerful celestial beings required an immense amount of power, and it usually wasn’t worth the hassle to try.

But. While Lucifer was feeling even the slightest bit indulgent with him was when Azram needed to move. He folded his hands together, hoping to quiet their shaking, and he gathered his scattered thoughts. 

When he spoke, it was with a steady voice. “I would like to return to Earth.”

Lucifer rolled onto his side, watching Azram with the same intensity he’d used to terrify him in Eden. What did it say about him, now, that he felt nothing in the way of fear?

“I have an idea. Several, actually. And I don’t trust… a single one of them,” he nodded towards the wall, indicating the rest of Hell, “to do anything properly.”

“So.”

“It would take time, but I swear that the potential harvest would be well worth my absence here.”

“Temptation isn’t your job,” Lucifer said.

Azram’s chest _squeezed_ around the words, reluctant to let him speak. “Perhaps it _should_ be.” Briskly, he continued, “I’m _good_ at it. Better than the rest of them. They have no sense of subtlety or, or _artistry_. You could, of course, recall me at any time, for any reason. I would never deny you that.” He couldn’t if he wanted to, but pointing that out would hardly help him now. “But I could bring so much glory to you.”

For a long moment, Lucifer watched him in a still silence. Then, he lunged forward, grabbing Azram by the throat to pin him to the floor. Azram didn’t move, neither to placate nor insist, waiting calmly for judgement.

Finally, Lucifer leaned forward, his lips brushing just over Azram’s as he murmured low and sweet: “You had better.”

* * *

The city was called Babilla. Several thousand humans lived there which had been absolutely incomprehensible at first. Azram had only ever seen isolated pockets of humans: Adam and Eve, their children. Even the locals nearest the Ark hadn’t numbered a full one hundred. None of that could have prepared him for the sprawl of the city, the sheer _number_ of humans everywhere he looked. They’d built out over the floodplains, covering, claiming everything in every direction until the last buildings which dotted the foothills of the distant mountains. 

Azram didn’t dare to stay airborne for long, feeling terribly vulnerable beneath the open sky. Even if humans weren’t paying attention to him, the chances of being seen by some other Heavenly or Hellish presence was too great. It kept him from reaching out, searching Babilla for them and alerting them to his presence in the process. He had no reason to fear other demons beyond inconvenience, but angels… The only thing worse than asking Lucifer to come up here once would be to ask again after getting discorporated.

This was the largest collection of human souls in Mesopotamia. He had to assume there was an angelic presence in the city and behave accordingly.

If he wanted to find someone specific, he would have to wait and see if they took notice.

And regardless of anything else, he did have work to do.

At first, Azram sought out the largest gatherings of humans he could find. They came together when their work was done to eat and to drink — it seemed Noah had been onto something with the fermented fruit. They sang much less beautifully than angels, and they danced much better than demons. They told _stories_.

Listening in at the edge of a crowd, he heard them speak of the flood and the Garden as if they’d happened to an entirely different people, and some of the stories they told resembled nothing Azram had ever heard. There were arguments about what really happened, about what the truth _was_, as if any of them could know. They continued long into the night, and Azram blended into the crowds as they dispersed, restless feet wandering aimlessly down dirt streets.

The starry sky was endless and vast, and for the briefest moment of madness, he wondered what would happen if he fled to them. If he could find any place in the universe where no one in Heaven or Hell could reach him.

With a slight shake of his head, he pushed the notion away. It served no one, least of all him.

Like most other demons, Azram was terribly good at lurking. He lurked at human gatherings, leeching their knowledge from them, catching up on over a thousand years of human invention he’d missed. He lurked, then, at the building sites, watching as the humans laid brick after brick, held together with something that tasted of the river. Once he’d done his fair share of lurking over several weeks, he’d finally discovered who he’d need to talk to and tempt.

Azram was going to build a monument.

Or, rather, _humans_ were going to build a monument, and Pride would be their downfall.

* * *

The problem, Azram decided so early on that a single brick had yet to be laid, was that humans were so _social_.

It was easy to whisper in their ears, to encourage separate entities to think of a massive building reaching towards the sky on their own, but it never went anywhere beyond that. Humans could sit on ideas and let them burn them from the inside out. It was a frustrating month before he’d made a daring move and cast aside his anonymity. Azram came before an organizer for the laborers in clothes he’d miracled for himself: a light skirt, a blue-green shawl with elaborate knots at the fringe, and modest jewelry made largely of beads with precious few flashes of a golden metal that caught in the sunlight. It had presented an entirely new set of problems — a name, a home, a life that the builder needed to believe existed — but Azram had started making progress.

Once the humans began thinking of the tower in relation to him, it was suddenly no longer an impossible abstract concept. It became real to them.

The farce was harder to keep up than he’d expected. It wasn’t enough to simply have a room somewhere that he could claim for himself; some wanted to see it, which required making it look as though a human lived there. It wasn’t enough to be present at meals where important conversations were had — they expected him to eat, to drink, to _participate_. He hadn’t eaten anything for pleasure’s sake since the Garden, yet he sat with them, broke bread with them, drank their preferred _kaš_ until his body felt warm and his head spun. A human helped him home, and Azram lay in his own bed for long hours. He didn’t indulge in sleep, but he enjoyed the weightlessness, the first lack of care he’d felt in so long that he couldn’t think of what to do with it except to bask until the feeling began to fade and left a slight headache in its place.

During the day, the tower began to grow.

At night, he stoked the flame glowing at the center of them.

“One day, it might reach the Heavens. Imagine, building all the way above the clouds, to where God rests on Their laurels. Showing them what we are capable of with no _powers_, no divine interference.” Of all the lies he’d told — and there had been many, on Earth as it was in Hell — this one felt almost alarmingly true. Of course, humans couldn’t build their way to Heaven, as it wasn’t a physical place on the same plane as Earth. But… God would notice. God would see their work, and regardless of what They thought of it, They would have to confront these terrifying, resilient things that They’d made. “I wonder what They’d say to you, then.”

### 2299 BC

The tower was the tallest building in Babilla. It reached towards the sky as if it ached for the sun, but progress had slowed. It took time to get bricks from the bottom of the tower to the top to be laid and sealed. It took time to build stairs and floors which made the building easier but required extra steps and materials. The number of humans who worked on building had grown, and they had been split into groups. Some harvested the clay while others shaped and fired the bricks; others delivered cartloads of bricks to where the tower was being built, and still more rushed the bricks and other materials up the stairs where builders worked.

Pride was spreading past the workers and past the humans he’d had a direct hand in tempting. Now, passing anyone in the market, he was likely to find their eyes drawn to where the tower stood, to feel their heart swell with a fondness and affection for what the tower _meant_ to all of them.

So many souls committed such a large sin all on their own, on a daily basis — Azram couldn’t be sure how many were truly Hell-bound, but they were all a good several steps closer than they had been years ago when he’d been little more than a fleeting thought, a sense of curiosity that they couldn’t shake.

Much to his surprise, Azram preferred this.

It was one thing to manipulate from the shadows, to cause flickers of doubt, urge the slightest concessions that would cause a human’s foundation to crumble. It was quite another to sit among them, to be able to influence them so directly because they trusted him, because they _respected_ him. Azram still used his demonic powers to supplement his temptations, but most of them occurred face to face with humans who knew him.

He’d felt the presence of other celestial entities once or twice, but whoever it was had stayed graciously out of his way.

Until now.

Atrox lounged on his bed, watching keenly as he stumbled into his room in the dead of night. Azram had been mildly intoxicated and rather enjoying the experience as he usually did. However, the moment he registered the other demon, all of the alcohol left his system in an instant, and one of the overseers’ breweries mysteriously filled itself back up. Azram stumbled at the sudden change in his bodily makeup, cringing at the taste it left in his mouth while Atrox watched him with the same unreadability as always.

“Can I _help_ you?” he asked, certain that the answer wasn’t going to be pleasant regardless of what it was.

“Imagine so. I’ve been told you haven’t been doin’ your reports.”

Azram blinked. “Pardon me?”

Atrox rolled her eyes and pushed herself up off the bed. “Your _reports_, you idiot. What miracles you’ve done, your temptations, your progress, your plans.”

“Ah,” he said tightly. “I believe I answer to Lucifer.” He particularly enjoyed the way she stiffened at the name, the obvious familiarity he — and only he — had with the Devil. “Not to you.”

“Look. All I know is I’ve got Lord Belphegor hangin’ over my head wanting to know what you’re gettin’ up to up here. I’m not arguin’ with her.”

“And what if I choose not to report in?”

“Then I’ll send you back in pieces.”

Azram crossed the room with one step and a flash of power, and, to his immense gratification, Atrox _flinched_.

“You know,” he said, calmly conversational, “I never got to _thank you_ for all that you did for me.” Azram smiled slowly. “All that time you kept me caged and _powerless_ in the dark. Forty years, was it?”

Atrox’s scales rippled onto her skin, but before she could lunge to bite him, he shoved her backwards with his own power, using it to pin her to the wall.

“Perhaps you should go back where you came from, and tell Belphegor that she can either question my Lord or myself on her own instead of sending weaker demons to demand that I explain myself to her.”

Atrox scoffed. “If you think I’d ever be more scared of you than a King of Hell, you’ve still got a lot to learn.”

“Really? Because, from where I’m standing, I’ve got _nothing_ but time to rip those fangs of yours out and put you in your place.” He shrugged casually. “Of course, you might be able to outlast me. Maybe you have the patience to wait for the cavalry to arrive. How long would it take the Kingdom of Sloth to send someone after you, do you think? I mean, I’ve only been up here for five years so far, and you’ve just now come to ask for reports.”

Truth be told, he had no interest in torturing anyone. He had far better things to do with his time.

But the very least he owed them was a show of it, a reminder that he had not forgotten.

It was satisfying when Azram felt her fear, her doubt, her hesitation, and he flicked his hand, releasing Atrox somewhere near the top of the tower to let her decide on the long climb down if she really wanted to continue pressing him.

She did not return.

### 2295 BC

One could see the tower looming from the far reaches of the city. Azram sometimes took for granted how great it had grown, but from a distance, one could really appreciate the almost ten-years’ worth of work that had gone into it. It was a pity that the vertical growth had stalled again somewhat. When the winds were fierce, it swayed like a tree, and to combat this, they’d begun building around it, bracing it between other tall buildings for additional support. Rather than growing up, the tower had begun growing out.

Azram’s new rooms were in one of the supporting buildings; he’d practically had first pick. He’d had first pick of a lot of things lately: the food, the _kaš_, the clothes. There was a particular shade of purple he’d grown fond of if only for the Envy he could feel while wearing the shawl. He’d pointedly worn it on his last trip to Hell — it turned out that reports were a real thing and not a pathetic attempt at harassment — and had needed to _explain_ the significance to the demons of the Court which had undermined the point entirely.

Nevertheless, Lucifer had been pleased.

It was hard to say whether he liked the tower as much as Azram did, or if he was only pleased with the humans who now considered him a god.

Granted, the name ‘Lucifer’ didn’t pass their lips in reverence or worship — Azram tried to cover his tracks slightly better than that. But to his worshipers, he was the god who had hung the sun in the sky, whose divine radiance banished the dark. To some of them, he was the god they were building to meet, who resided in the Heavens and favored them above all others.

The last time Lucifer had fucked him, he’d let Azram _feel_ their prayers, their praise, their faith that they gave willingly and damned themselves for in return. He’d felt the depths of power it gave Lucifer, and it had left an aching chasm in him when it had been taken back.

* * *

Azram had found a comfortable rhythm to life in Babilla, such as it was. Alarmingly simple, repetitive, yet things moved at a speed he wasn’t used to. Immortality meant most change was done over periods of decades in Hell. Life in the city could change significantly in a matter of days. One needed to be able to change with it.

Lately, he’d felt the discontentment of his workers. The lack of progress on the tower was getting to them, pulling them from the reverie of single-minded creation to think about the ‘whys’ of it all. This happened regularly and in waves. Humans needed to be reminded why something was important; they needed to have their spirits rejuvenated.

Azram bustled along down the now-familiar streets at a brisk pace, having put together some vague semblance of a plan. It would require owing a lot of favors — which he never particularly minded with humans because their needs were so relatively simple — but he thought he could organize a feast in a few days’ time. Food always seemed to work in a pinch, and he quite enjoyed it himself.

Lost in his head, he didn’t realize how abruptly _not alone_ he was until there was a hand on his wrist and the world twisted around him. Steps that had been going one direction were suddenly leading in another, off the streets and down an alley between buildings where they would be unnoticed and left alone.

The hands in his shawl were not harsh, but they were firm, and the brick scraped his back as he was carefully urged to stop.

He found himself staring into golden eyes.

Azram brightened. “Corvai.”

“What are you doing here?”

Azram hadn’t had the highest expectations, but he was almost disappointed. “Isn’t it obvious?” When Corvai glared, Azram hummed. “If it isn’t, I should hardly _tell_ you. You’ll only be cross.”

“Oh, _cross_? Is that all?” Corvai pressed Azram tighter against the building when he attempted to move. “See, I thought I’d maybe be _livid_ or maybe a bit murderous.”

Azram couldn’t help himself. “Oh, dear, are you still struggling with that temper of yours?”

“Only when you’re involved. So unless you want to queue for a new body…”

And, oh, wasn’t it precious that he thought Azram would have to _wait_? He’d entrenched himself too deeply, and Lucifer was enjoying the worship he received. He wouldn’t risk losing it if all that he had to do was snap his fingers to restore Azram’s body.

But it was probably for the best if Corvai didn’t know precisely how easy it would be for Azram to return.

“The tower, angel.” Corvai’s brow creased. Azram asked gently, “You have noticed it, haven’t you?”

“Have I noticed the bloody—” He groaned and shoved Azram against the wall before tentatively stepping back to run his hand back through his hair. “Yes, I’ve _noticed_ the tower. What’s that got to do with you?”

Azram smoothed out his clothes. “I’ve been helping them build it.”

“Helping,” Corvai repeated.

“Tempting, if you want to call it that.”

“Why don’t we?” he demanded with a hiss. “And why, pray tell, are you tempting them to build something?”

“Ah, but that would be telling.”

“Demon, I—” Corvai began, but the words jumbled in his mouth, and he frowned more intensely. When he spoke, the heat had gone out of his voice. “You never told me your name.”

“Is ‘demon’ not sufficient?”

“I mean, it _is_, but—” He crossed his arms and leaned against the far wall. He looked over Azram’s shoulder at the wall rather than at him directly, and he mumbled, “S’been seven-hundred years.”

It struck Azram at that moment that it had been a terribly long time to wait. It was time where he could have searched for the name, found demons to interrogate, or searched for someone among the Heavenly Host who had known him. Yet, here Corvai was, _asking_.

Azram couldn’t remember the last time anyone had asked him anything that he’d dared to take at face value.

“If you’re here to destroy the tower, I won’t tell you.”

“‘m not here to destroy it.”

Azram believed him. “I’m afraid I don’t believe you. Why else would an angel be in Babilla?”

“Got to give a blessing to a man of God in the city.”

Oh, but that stung. Azram gave no outward indication that Corvai had said anything particularly surprising. He nodded along while appearing pensive. But he had to wonder… How had Heaven not sent anyone to actually _look_ at the tower, to thwart him? The first angel he’d encountered hadn’t even considered it to be a problem. There was Pride in every brick in the tallest building on the planet, but it hadn’t even registered as a demonic work, had it?

What was he doing wrong?

“Prove something to me.”

“What, prove that I’m here to do something else?”

“No.” Azram stepped towards the street. “I won’t trust you regardless of what you’re here to do. But I have things that need to be done, so I can’t stand around all day bickering with you. Come with me, stay out of trouble, and maybe I’ll tell you my name later. Prove you deserve it.”

“So you’re going to leverage _your name_ over me to get me to leave your big,” he gestured towards the tower with one hand, “grand temptation _alone_?”

“Will it work?” he prompted, raising his eyebrows.

Corvai gritted his teeth and pushed himself off the wall with an agitated sigh. “Maybe. We’ll see how I feel.”

Azram smiled and stepped out of the shadowy alley into the sunlit street. Corvai gave only a moment’s pause before he sauntered after him.


	8. the tower.

Azram was being watched.

It wasn’t new to him. First, it had been God and the Archangels in Heaven, judging every move, every decision and weighing it against an invisible and unknown standard. The moment he’d failed to meet it, he’d been discarded. Then, there had been demons, then Lucifer, and then all of Hell. Gossip spread like wildfire, and once he had been known for his special place at Lucifer’s feet, he could scarcely go anywhere without feeling eyes on him. The pattern of other demons attempting to put him in his place — or where they deemed him to belong — had only confirmed his paranoia.

That is to say, he was used to the feeling of being watched and measured. It had been a daily factor of Azram’s life for so long that feeling completely unnoticed would have been far more unnerving.

But right now, it was different.

Corvai was some yards away, careful not to be too close, keeping a calculated distance of plausible deniability between them. Azram thought that he could feel when Corvai chanced a look at him; his attention settled a weight on Azram’s shoulders, a comfortable burden. And, in the meantime, he had a feast to organize which required playing the part he’d cast himself in with the humans of Babilla: a kind — if occasionally confused — foreigner, a source of benevolence and wisdom.

There was a thrill that came with being watched by a specific angel. Corvai knew what he was, what he had done, what he was capable of, yet he stood to the side and allowed Azram to continue without interference.

Azram was juggling, and, not to be too arrogant, he was doing it well.

The day was long, which was what he’d anticipated when he’d left in the early hours to start putting a plan into motion and exactly what he’d dreaded before he’d decided not to give his name to Corvai in exchange for a temporary truce. He did his best to rein in his impatience, to appear as though nothing had changed between yesterday and today, but his eagerness was bright and overwhelming. More than once, he found himself apologizing to a human who had begun to radiate discomfort.

By the time he’d secured food and musicians for the day after next, the sun had begun to dip towards the horizon. The buildings cast shadows in the streets, and it was in these that he felt safest to approach Corvai. Azram walked past him, slowing just enough to tell him, “Almost done. I’ll be at the base of the tower once the sun’s gone down, if you want to wait.”

“What are you playing at here?” Corvai hissed.

Azram scoffed. What an odd question. “Humanity, I suppose.” He shrugged. “Be there or don’t. Your choice, angel.” 

Without looking back, Azram walked away.

* * *

It should have been a quick temptation, really, to convince the overseer that the builders deserved something special for their time and efforts. But Greed had rooted deeply inside him, and even though Azram had everything well in hand when it came to preparations, the overseer took a good deal longer to convince than Azram had anticipated. Outside, the sun disappeared over the horizon, and the stars glittered overhead. The moon shone, softening the edges of the night, and Azram’s patience began to wane.

He wouldn’t keep Corvai waiting.

“Very well. I’ll send the messengers myself.”

“You will not undermine me,” the overseer snarled. “Everything you have, all your comforts, your success — you owe to _me_.”

The brazen declaration startled a laugh out of him. The familiar notes of ownership rang especially hollow in the dim torchlight, the mortal man shrouded in shadows.

“Is that so,” Azram mused to himself as he pushed himself from his seat. He was a moment away from putting the idea forcibly in the man’s head with the suggestion that he come seek Azram out tomorrow to talk to him about it. Really, it was right on the tips of his fingers.

But then the human grabbed him.

One moment, Azram was startled, almost smiling in confusion, frozen under the unfamiliar touch.

In the next flicker of light, the next blink of the human’s eyes, Azram surged forward. His wings snapped into being as his pupils slanted and horns grew in a sudden burst. The human opened his mouth to scream, but Azram silenced him with a slight tilt of his head. He murmured, “You really shouldn’t have done that. Should you?”

He could imagine the overseer’s poor heart — it could handle many things, but no human was ever really _prepared_ to encounter a demon without warning. It would be squeezing in his chest; his pulse would be pounding through his head. The man backed away from Azram, stumbling over his feet and falling into a chair as Azram loomed over him.

A soft tut, and in the overseer’s next frightened blink, Azram forced his demonic traits back down until he looked no different than he had the first time they’d met. “Are you quite alright?” he asked softly, advancing in tentative, worried steps.

The human scrabbled backwards, and Azram rather enjoyed knowing that even though he had his voice back, he was silent. Azram stopped short, folding his hands behind his back with a perplexed frown. “Dear me. Perhaps we should continue this conversation in the morning. You look positively dreadful.” He glanced towards the door. “Should I tell someone to come help you?”

There was, perhaps, the tiniest hint of teeth to the question, an unspoken threat to harm whoever came to his aid. The overseer shook his head wildly, one hand creeping up to cover his mouth as if afraid that he’d start screaming and never stop.

Azram couldn’t know for certain that he would, but it was a possibility with these things.

Gently, “Get some rest, my dear fellow. I’ll swing back round tomorrow and see how you’re doing.”

If that was a threat, too, well… perhaps that was the only language some people understood.

* * *

It hadn’t occurred to him until the moment he arrived that Corvai might not understand where, precisely, Azram intended to meet him. The small garden that grew between two of the support buildings was generally as close as one could get to the central tower without going inside. It was empty and quiet save for the low hum of insects celebrating the summer night.

So, he circled, first one way then the other around the circumference of the tower and surrounding buildings, hoping that Corvai had the general knowledge to _stay still_ while he was found at first, and then hoping to walk into him by changing direction.

Azram had factored in the slight possibility that Corvai might not show up. He already had a history of not doing what was expected of him, but Azram had been so _sure_—

Or had he been hopeful? The thought gave him pause, and he slowed to a stop not far from the door that would lead him up the stairs to his rooms, a frown tugging on his lips.

Perhaps he’d thought the name gave him more leverage than it did. Perhaps Corvai hadn’t found the answer because he simply didn’t care what it was.

Azram had let the angel follow him. He’d let Corvai see how he interacted with humans without any attempt to cloak himself. If Corvai wanted information — real information that he could use, not something so frivolous as a name — Azram had given it to him freely.

He sighed. It was foolish to think that Corvai wouldn’t have learned after last time, that he would remain so naive. Azram supposed the one single mercy was that he’d had the foresight to dismiss Corvai before going to meet with the overseer. Seeing him sway humans in the marketplace was one thing, but seeing him threaten someone inside their home while looking visibly demonic was quite another.

Azram stood still beneath the stars, chancing a look up at them as if he might see the same golden streak that had raced towards him over a field in a blaze of fury and heartbreak. But the sky looked as it always did: star-scattered and distant, a promise of freedom not meant for the likes of him.

He could hear the distant plucking of a lyre, a song rising just above the noises of the night. Human revelry would carry on into the night for a while yet.

Over the past several years, Azram had grown used to human singing. Clumsy, out of tune, full of pauses not meant to be heard but to be ignored while the singer took a breath. It was nothing compared to the choirs of Heaven, but it was certainly nicer than anything he’d heard in Hell.

Which meant that he knew the difference.

The moment the voice reached his ears, Azram froze. Every biological function he simply expected to work slammed to a sudden halt. The thrum of his pulse, the sound of his breathing — everything within him fell into a deafening quiet. It was faint, but _oh_, he heard it as if he had been made to listen.

Corvai’s voice was as bright and clear as the night sky above them. It felt as vast and unknowable as the breath of Creation. To Azram, it felt like cool water ran over his skin, as smooth as silk, as fresh as a spring just bubbling out of the earth or like standing in that first deluge of cleansing rain.

It plucked at him the way humans — and angels, apparently — plucked at their instruments. There was a perfect harmony between the song and some part of him that he’d never really forgotten. It washed over him, smoothing over his sharp edges, soothing the longing ache that had existed in the center of his soul ever since he had Fallen. It yearned for what had been taken from him, what he could never again claim for himself. Azram rose, unbidden, onto his toes, seeking to be closer without being noticed.

He wanted to hear Corvai sing to the stars until the universe began to collapse, until this failure of existence ceased and all that had ever been created returned to malleable dust.

In the face of such desperate want, he finally managed to move. His wings snapped open for the second time in a day, quickly carrying him up to the top of the tower.

The top level wasn’t yet fully built. Corvai sat, one leg dangling out into the open air and the other curled close to his body. His fingers ran confidently over the plain lyre’s strings, coaxing a melody from them that they were never meant to play. His face was, at first, tipped up towards the stars; the breeze caught in his hair, twisting through it. The soft sound of the wind outlasted the song. Corvai stopped singing, stopped playing, and he lowered his head, peering downward with soft, moonlit shadows obscuring his face.

As he neared, Azram could see his eyes, wide with worry. All six of his white wings curled around him as if expecting some retaliation, protecting him from the vulnerable position he’d put himself in.

Perhaps Corvai didn’t know, so Azram said, as gently as was possible, “The base means the bottom, angel.”

Corvai gaped for a moment before he managed to shout. “I know that! I _waited_, but the sun went down, and you— You weren’t there.”

“So I was a little late.” His heart reluctantly began to beat, and he forced himself to breathe before he forgot how to entirely. “You didn’t have to come all the way up here to sulk.”

“‘M not sulking.” His wings folded closer around him, and Azram briefly wondered if Corvai was aware of it. He decided almost instantly that it didn’t matter. He certainly wasn’t going to tell the angel how desperately easy he was to read. “Thought I’d come see what all the fuss is about, is all.”

“You won’t get that here. Most of the humans haven’t been up here. They just…” Azram waved a hand, indicating the sprawl of the city. “They see it. Day-to-day, going about their business, and then, sometimes, they decide to _look_. They _think_ about it. They give it meaning.”

Corvai’s brow wrinkled. “Why?”

“That’s what humans do.”

“No, I know that. I mean… why bother? All of this seems like such a slow way to tempt someone.”

Azram smiled broadly. “I’m sorry, Corvai, would you like me to be more efficient?”

_“No.”_

“Because that _is_ what it sounds like.” He tutted. “Criticizing my work ethic while standing in the product. You’ve got some nerve, you know.”

“Why?” Corvai drawled. His lyre disappeared as he sprawled comfortably along the edge of oblivion. “I’m probably in the safest place I could be.”

Oh, but that was annoyingly correct. The agitation must have shown on his face, because Corvai grinned. He tilted his head back against the brick wall, and the moonlight caught in his eyes, glowing softly, warmly. Azram scoffed before landing on the open wall beside him. He sat down, his own feet swinging into nothingness as he tucked his wings away.

He thought to withhold the name, now. It was petty, perhaps, and certainly out of spite, but Corvai had pressed quite deliberately in a place where Azram was vulnerable. Even idle threats were threats, and Azram was not in the habit of forgiving easily.

But Corvai didn’t ask. He watched Azram for a time, but he let their mutual silence carry itself onward without demanding a thing.

Though they had talked on the Ark often, there had been times like this as well. The well of words ran dry, and in its place was an almost disquieting comfort.

The last lights in the city began to go out one by one, and soon everything was swallowed by the darkness, leaving only the moonlight illuminating vague shapes so very far below.

The longer they didn’t speak, the more he wanted to know. Were all of these humans descended from the ones on the Ark? Had Corvai been watching them as dutifully as Azram had thought he would? What did Heaven have to say about the wayward children and the generations that followed?

Was he really thwarting demons so thoroughly in Mesopotamia, and, if so, why was he sitting there, now, in Azram’s presence, in Azram’s tower, peaceable?

Perhaps he didn’t see Azram as a threat, which would work to his advantage if it didn’t rankle him terribly.

In the end, they passed hours in silence, until the sky began to lighten on the eastern horizon.

He had to. Now. Before the sun peeked over those distant mountains. It was too _bright_, and it always reminded him…

Well, it hardly mattered.

“Azram.”

He turned his head, watching as Corvai blinked. He took in the name, let it form on his lips, testing the shape of it.

“Azram,” Corvai repeated softly, and the first difficult-to-read expression crossed his face.

Ah, but of course it would be a disappointment. Corvai had too long to wonder, to come up with ideas of his own — a dangerous habit for an angel, but that hadn’t stopped him yet — that the real answer would always have been insufficient.

“Were you Azram before or after the sheep bit?”

“Before,” he lied easily. Corvai didn’t need to know how long he had been nameless, adrift, without purpose, all but dead.

“So they were named after you.”

“Must’ve been.” And, because he could, because there was no one else in the tower but the two of them, he let his eyes change, let his horns grow. He bared his sharp teeth in a brief grin, but Corvai was as calm as he’d been before.

Slowly, his own pupils narrowed into slits, and Azram stared. He swore he could _see_ it — the aura of Corvai’s halo, brighter than anything on Earth, pure grace that bled out through his kind gaze. His wings could spread so wide that they could engulf the Earth, protecting it, possessing it while life bathed in the light emanating from his soul.

Or, perhaps, he’d seen one too many Seraphim, too long ago, that for a moment, he saw what he expected to see.

### 2293 BC

“Ram?”

There was a slight twitch of Azram’s lips, something close to a smile. Corvai sprawled inelegantly in a chair, legs thrown over an arm and slinky spine draped over the other. Occasionally, he lifted himself up to grab at the mug containing his _kaš_ that sat on a table near him, greedily sucking through his straw before he gave up on being upright again.

It wasn’t a common sight. Not really.

But Azram was starting to get used to it.

“Ram,” he repeated, short and sweet, less question and more demand. He wanted to be sure that he was being heard.

“Yes, Corvai,” he said as patiently as he could.

Sometimes, they ran into each other. It made sense, then, to swap notes. Tit for tat, giving just enough without spoiling the game, without saying enough that they’d get caught. It was a delicate balance, and they had no other option than to tread carefully.

But, that conversation had happened an hour ago. Somehow, Azram felt certain that he wasn’t going to get anything useful from Corvai tonight, regardless of whatever thought was currently causing his face to wrinkle up.

“Did you start the— the—” Corvai trailed off.

“Hm?” he prompted, smile ticking wider as the angel gave a frustrated sigh, throwing himself backwards and almost slithering out of his seat.

“Thethethe,” he tried. “The whole _cult_ thing.”

“Hardly fair to characterize it as a _cult_.” He forced a frown, toying with his own straw. “That time they fished up a big— big bugger-all fish and decided that it was the Leviathan. That was a cult.”

“Leviathan… Tha’s Envy, right?”

He shook his head. “Tiamat.”

Corvai’s golden eyes narrowed. “Who?”

“King of Envy. S’Tiamat.” His own cup of _kaš_ was mostly empty, and the light-headed feeling that came with drinking made it easier to talk about his coworkers without fearing that they’d somehow overhear.

There was really only one name that Corvai needed not to say. It was a name no human in the city knew, no matter how large his ‘cult’ had gotten.

“Wait, wait, so it _was_ you.”

“No,” Azram said. “That’s Tiamat. Not me.” Almost gently, “You remember my name, right?”

Corvai blinked. “Tiamat started the cult?”

“S’not a _cult_.” Azram took another drink of the thick _kaš_, wiggling down in his seat to get more comfortable. “Just because you don’t like it.”

“It _is_ a cult,” Corvai said, twisting in his chair to face Azram, “because he’s not a god.”

“I’m not having this argument with you again.”

Corvai still looked confused. “What was bloody Tiamat doing running around on Earth?”

“The Kings _can_. Just like the Archangels.”

Corvai opened his mouth, closed it, glanced upward with a wary — if wavering — glare as if Gabriel would manifest right over him. “Alright,” he conceded, relaxing slightly after a moment. “So, Tiamat came and talked the humans into worshiping—” He pointed almost downward.

“No, my dear boy, that was me.”

Corvai flailed into a position that was more closely related to ‘sitting’. “S’what I asked!” 

“Was it?” Azram asked mildly, smiling. “Why? Does it matter?” He wheedled. “After all, it’s their choice. Free will, the Ineffable Plan, and so on.”

“Jus’ wondering,” Corvai said, peering into his cup and brightening when he saw how much there was left to drink. Azram indulged for long moments as Corvai got down to the debris and dregs. The angel blushed visibly, brown skin deepening its rich color. Corvai always looked like he was seconds away from glowing after he’d gotten a bit drunk.

It was a good look on him — so open and guileless, so comfortable.

It was utterly indecent.

“Angel,” Azram started, barely aware that he’d said anything even as Corvai watched him, unblinking and warm.

“Yeah?”

What had he wanted to say? It was right on the tip of his tongue, slipping just out of reach right when he thought he’d found the shape of it. A sigh. Corvai frowned at him, and it was— Cruel, wasn’t it? He hadn’t done anything. Had he?

“Are you as soft as I remember?”

Corvai frowned. “Ssoft?” he repeated in a low hiss.

Had he said that? For Satan’s sake, what had he been talking about?

Azram sobered up so quickly that he forgot to get rid of the hangover.

### 2280 BC

“Divine inspiration,” Azram repeated, unable to keep himself from smiling. _“Muse.”_

“Shut it.” Corvai’s face was visibly red even in the low firelight.

Azram would not. “They carve your likeness into tablets, and you _sit_ for them.”

“I do not. I didn’t even know—!”

“Oh, my dear, you _knew_.” Azram’s eyes raked over Corvai, eyes lingering on the lyre he’d first seen while sitting at the top of the tower with him. “Unless you want me to believe you were blessing people on accident.”

A corner trap: either Corvai could confess to a staggering amount of incompetence, or he could admit to trying to lie to a demon.

Corvai’s eyes widened, but he didn’t have the time to respond. The crowd he’d been playing for — who, naturally, hadn’t heard a word that was spoken between them — began cheering for the next song in a sudden rush of noise. Azram let them come out of their stupor on their own terms. He slunk to the back of the room, finding a place to sit as Corvai’s fingers began to wander along the strings again. He looked shaken. But he didn’t stop.

There was a certain amount of delicious Pride to be found in an angel who _performed_ the way he did, shamelessly drawing the attention of everyone around him with the divine magnetism inherent to his being.

He was always, whether he wanted to be or not, so very interesting.

### 2273 BC

“Y’know, we’ve been wondering.”

“We?” Azram prompted. He knew what Corvai meant. He wanted to hear him say it.

“We,” Corvai repeated. “Just wanted to know when you lot thought this would be done.”

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to be more specific.”

Corvai groaned and rolled his eyes theatrically.

It would be polite to drink, to reaffirm that the _kaš_ was safe even if there was no real danger of either of them being poisoned, to let his own walls slide down so that Corvai would be willing to do the same.

It would be polite, but Azram was a demon.

He straightened the shawl around his shoulders, feeling the rough burn of the fabric against his skin, against the lesions that had been left there, closed but unhealed. Then, Azram folded his hands on top of the table, hiding their jitter by pressing them subtly down against the wood.

Was it a coincidence that Corvai had the same question merely days after he’d been asked it elsewhere?

Azram couldn’t know.

“Fine,” Corvai said, his voice clipped. “Heaven, alright? Heaven wants to know when you think your tower’s gonna be finished.”

“Who could say?” The same answer. He had to be consistent. “When the humans get bored of it, or can’t build any more.”

“Do they need you for that?”

The same question again. Phrased differently, in a much nicer voice. No hellforged chains, no sweet surrender.

Patience was a virtue, which meant Lucifer had very little of it.

“Eventually, no. I imagine I could leave them to it.” He smiled pleasantly. “Why?”

Corvai blinked at him. “Why?”

“Yes: why? I thought Heaven didn’t care about my little pet project.”

Corvai glanced towards the door. He couldn’t see the tower from here — they were too close to the ground, too close to the tower itself, but Azram knew where he was looking. “Maybe it got too big to ignore.”

“Maybe,” Azram drawled. Or maybe, he mused, Corvai had been lying the entire time about where his real priorities lay. “What is Heaven going to do about it?” He let the words hang heavily, offering no absolution, no escape from them, nothing to soften the blow.

Corvai knew. If Heaven decided to move, he would be their weapon, their chosen agent.

He’d spared humans, but demons wouldn’t get the same kindness.

Corvai rolled his eyes again and crossed his arms on the table in front of him. “D’you have to make everything so fucking difficult?”

“What’s difficult about it?” His fingers curled around his other hand. He could feel the tension straining in his shoulders; his entire body would quake if he let it. “We’re both doing our jobs, aren’t we?” His smile started to fade. “What else would you have me do?”

Really, that was the crux of the issue. They’d developed a short rapport, a system for working around one another, but it wasn’t enough. The greedy thing wanted Azram to stop of his own volition, out of some misplaced sense of loyalty to an angel who hadn’t known his name a hundred years ago.

Azram pushed himself up from the table abruptly while Corvai still searched for an answer. Corvai jumped to his feet, his own chair scraping across the floor. “Ram.”

“Stay here, angel.” He folded his hands behind his back, and he forced his smile wider. “You never know when a human might need you.” He cocked his head, and there was a scream on the far side of the hall. Corvai watched him for a long moment before he could no longer ignore the human in distress, and Azram left unhindered.

### 2270 BC

The tower swayed dizzyingly under his feet, caught in the breeze and reluctant to let go.

Progress had slowed to a crawl. Many of the workers, now, could scarcely remember the city before there was the tower. It had become a part of Babilla, and it had taken him too long to realize that when the first generation died, they would take the original meaning with them. They would take that fire, that drive, the urgent need to know if it was possible, and nothing would remain.

Babilla knew too many people who had given their life’s work to the tower, who had never reached the Heavens or the god who lived there.

Azram perched at a window, staring up at the sky which seemed as far away as it had the first time he’d looked up from Babilla’s streets.

He had known, of course, that they couldn’t reach Heaven this way. He had known.

But he hadn’t expected to care that they would eventually decide to give up.

Azram squeezed through the window to the cold, biting wind outside. His skirt and shawl were swept back, mapping out the round figure underneath until he pushed off into the night. His wings opened, the right one aching as it always did as he soared higher, to where the steps couldn’t yet reach, to the highest man-made point in the world.

“You knew,” he accused, ignoring the way blood ran from his mouth. He was used to it. “You knew I wouldn’t get… anywhere, so You did nothing.”

That was, of course, assuming that God had noticed him at all. Heaven had — it had taken a good while, but they had — but that didn’t mean They were listening, that They had anything to do with it.

“I wish they’d see.” A bitter, empty laugh scraped out of his throat, and he sighed. “Maybe they did. Maybe all of Heaven knows how… cruel and thoughtless You are. Maybe they know You aren’t listening.”

What if he had been the last angel to ever speak with Them?

The idea didn’t bring him comfort. It didn’t even make him angry. He felt… hollow.

The unfairness of it all rose like bile in his throat, and Azram could either choke on it or scream.

The silence at the top of the tower spoke volumes.

He ran a shaking hand down his face. The heat of his whisper gathered in the palm of his hand, pressing the words back into his lungs the moment he had the audacity to breathe. “Did You send him to punish me?”

Was it crueler if it was intentional or if it had been an accident; if he had been given what he wanted only to have it be his undoing, or if uncaring, unfeeling entropy had thrown this in his lap through sheer coincidence?

He regretted the words the moment they left his mouth. He regretted saying them, _feeling them_. He regretted every blessed thing he’d ever done.

This, too, was familiar.

Eventually, Azram found his way back to the ground. He rolled his shoulders, tucked his wings away, and stalked to his rooms.

There was revelry in chaos and destruction, all quickly mended with a mere snap of his fingers.

He had to get back to work.

### 2266 BC

It took time.

Most things did.

It was something that he’d had to explain to Lucifer with as much patience as he could possibly muster. Yes, he could have miracled the tower into being overnight. It could loom over Babilla, looking either like it descended from Heaven or sprouted straight from Hell. It would have drawn angelic attention, but he could have done it, and it would have been done, and then he’d have been back, happy as you please, in his spot in Hell.

All they would have had to worry about, then, was a spot of retaliation.

But — and it had taken somehow much longer for Lucifer to understand this bit — having the humans build it meant something. It was theirs to create, to ascribe meaning to. It was personal. It was a beacon of sin that was now nestled in the heart of every human in Babilla. It would exist in their memories, in their stories. It would outlive them. The impact was immeasurable, would be in time.

If the original humans weren’t around to build it, if the meaning had changed, then he needed to change with it.

Azram faded. Work went to the buildings around the tower, growing the supports, creating a central hub to the city. The winding hallways that connected parts of the buildings together felt too cramped, too crowded, so he found a building farther from the tower to live in and vacated his rooms silently, leaving many things behind as if he’d one day stepped out and never returned.

He let them forget his face, forget parts of him, and he focused his efforts elsewhere. The ‘cult’ — as Corvai liked to call it — had grown; families had been made, and there were children who now believed in their parents’ sun god. There were people to be maneuvered, positions of power and support thereof, critical hinges that could be oiled by placing the right person in the right place.

By the time he reemerged as a public figure, the only person in the city who could recognize him was Corvai.

When they asked for his name, he smiled brightly, and told them, “Abel.”

* * *

“What are you doing?”

There was something almost nostalgic about this: Corvai’s hands fisted in his clothes, his voice a low and menacing hiss. Brick scraped roughly at his back. His own home was a few minutes’ walk from here — how long had Corvai been waiting for him to emerge?

There was a time for games, and this wasn’t it. “I’m building my tower. Now, if you’ll excuse me—” He tried to pull away only for Corvai to shove him back again. His head cracked back against the brick, and he smiled despite himself. It had been a while since he’d seen Corvai truly _angry_.

“You don’t _get_ to use his name, demon.”

“Oh, we’re back to ‘demon’, are we?” Corvai’s divine fury wrapped tighter around him, and Azram hissed through his teeth as it pressed against his skin, seeping downward in warning. He didn’t want to deal with discorporation. He didn’t want to have to convince Lucifer again that this would be worth it. “Corvai—” he gasped, reaching up to grab his wrists.

“You killed him. You— _Everything_ you did to them? You don’t get to ignore that now.”

“Everything I did?” Azram asked. “Fine. Let’s think about the unicorns, shall we?” He didn’t miss the raw hurt that crossed Corvai’s face, the same indecision and fear that had been there the day of the Ark.

“Don’t—” he warned, but some of his fire had gone out.

“How many of them?” Azram demanded, staring into his eyes, staring through him. “How many of these people would be here, now, if I hadn’t done anything?”

“All you did,” Corvai ground out, “was condemn a species to extinction.”

“Oh, angel. You did that, when you chose to let them go.” His claws pricked Corvai’s skin, holding him at bay while golden blood dripped down his arms. “If I had stood by, you would have _slithered_ onto the ship—”

“Stop it.”

“—and hidden from all responsibility—”

“Shut up.”

“—until,” Azram snarled, “they were gone. Oops. Too late to do anything.” He leaned closer, sneering. “What’s eleven more bodies, hm? To the likes of _Heaven_?”

_ **“I said shut up.”** _

Azram felt the power surge through him, forcibly silencing his voice. He continued looking into Corvai, bright-eyed and unafraid. Did he think he was the first? Did he really think he was the _worst_ Azram had been through?

What did he expect; grovelling, _sniveling_ apologies? Did he want him to beg and cower and plead for mercy that would never come?

Corvai’s breathing shuddered, and the rage burned brighter.

He shook his head with a slight smirk. Hypocrite.

“What,” Corvai hissed.

Azram rolled his eyes and tilted his head back, indicating his empty throat, the power of speech that had been robbed from him. As if he hadn’t realized what he’d done, Corvai blinked, and Azram felt his vocal cords reform. He chuckled lowly, enjoying the hum in his throat before he spoke. “It’s just that… most demons at least let their toys _scream_.”

That hurt look again, and Corvai faltered.

“I don’t think so,” he purred when Corvai tried to pull his hands back. Still gripping his wrists, Azram pulled him forward until Corvai stumbled, pressing tightly against him. It was all that kept him from falling. “Go ahead, angel,” Azram murmured, leaning nearer as if to close the scant inches between them. “Hurt me. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Over a name? A word? Over the two lives I ruined. How many have you saved? How many have there been to save because of _me_?”

Corvai snarled, baring his fangs. “Point taken.”

Azram shoved him away, putting space between them. He stood up straight, smoothing out his robes.

“Turn the tower into a bloody altar for all I care. But if I find out you’re doing _anything_ else in Babilla, Azram. Anything not related to the tower, I’ll send you back to Hell in blessed boxes.”

“Delightfully cruel, Corvai.” He smiled coldly. “But what else should I expect from _you_, of all angels?”

Corvai snapped his fingers and disappeared before he could give into the Wrathful urge to tear Azram limb from limb.

### 2260 BC

The tower was a place of worship. Not all of it, of course — there was too much. The upper floors were utterly uninhabited save for when the new builders occasionally visited to patch up the roof.

It wouldn’t grow upwards. He’d had to give up on that and lean more heavily into the symbolism of it all. The tower reached towards the Heavens, and, one day, their god would reach down to them, would take their monument in hand, would be pleased with how far they had come before pulling them up to join his Kingdom in the sky.

As far as stories went, he thought of it as kind. He thought of it as merciful.

One day, it would change again. After he left this in their hands and moved on to the next stage, the humans would turn it into what they liked. Until then, though, he could encourage that Pride in themselves, in the work of their forebears, of what they could achieve when ambition went unchecked.

His encounters with Corvai had all-but ceased. They ran across one another every now and then, but as far as Azram knew, Corvai had largely moved on. He had other blessings to attend to, and Babilla had a different angel — some pompous Principality, if Azram had to guess — watching the city.

When Corvai crossed paths with Azram, it was unpleasant. They now knew what they were capable of, knew the true nature of their enemy. It had destroyed the fragile friendship that they’d been building once upon a time.

All for the best, Azram thought, as Corvai passed him in the street. For a moment their eyes met, and he felt his gut twist at the soft, injured look in Corvai’s.

Unfair, that angels could pull at his emotions like that. Unfair, and he pretended to be immune.

* * *

It almost felt like Falling.

It felt like the world opened up beneath him to swallow him whole, to spit him out in some other dark corner, some new place to be forgotten and forsaken, injured, used. Azram stumbled against a wall in his home, wide eyes staring at the floor, waiting, waiting for divine punishment, for Wrath he didn’t understand, wasn’t meant to understand: the _ineffable_ anger.

Then, it happened again. Hours later, when he’d just started to shake the paranoia, the world heaved under his feet. It cracked open wide, and he could hear the distant scrape of buildings breaking apart.

The scream was what got his attention. Shrill and high as a shadow passed along the ground. Azram looked up, fearing the sight of angels or some unknowable source of light.

Somehow, this was worse.

A crack widened up the side of the tower, splintering bricks apart where they had been laid. The upper stories had been built in bursts, in a hurry, and they weren’t structurally sound.

How else could this have ended, he wondered faintly as the top several floors of the tower broke off and began to careen to the ground.

God had noticed, and They had passed judgement in infuriating silence.

The crowds moved towards the less populated parts of the city, but his own feet carried him closer, each step a heavy, rippling quake upon the earth. The buildings continued to shatter. There was a wail that went up in the distance. He could feel people dying around him, crying out in pain and fear.

He could feel too much.

Azram’s wings opened and opened, unfolding in their impossible, endless numbers and carrying him off the ground. Fire gathered around him, bright and burning, catching thatch and the greenery of the city, spreading it onward and outward. His shattered wheels cut through the brick as though they were made of butter, bringing more and more crashing down around him.

For every eye that stared at him, one opened on him to stare back.

In every direction, the city was a wreck, and the wreckage was spreading.

And Azram began to laugh.

It was soft, barely more than a chuckle at first, but hearing it made him more aware that it was bubbling out of him, endless and consuming the now-empty spaces inside him. He was filled with light, or, perhaps, had always been filled with Lucifer’s damned incandescence, so that he glowed like the sun and burned up the world around him.

Frantic prayers whipped through his head, meaningless babble praying for mercy, praying for him to take them away as they’d been promised.

They were so afraid.

They had every right to be.

The humans on the outskirts of the city went first, then the next closest. More and more were whipped away by the frenzy of his wings, sent flying to some far part of Mesopotamia. What few managed to hold on, to hide — they would be left to die. Poor dears. Poor, stupid animals that didn’t know better.

“Ram!”

The tower crumbled again, more floors collapsing inward and spilling out, onto the supporting buildings which caved in under the sudden weight of heavy bricks falling on top of them.

Corvai wasn’t brighter than him. He wasn’t glowing with anger or comfort, wasn’t cradling the world close to his bosom, wasn’t singing a thing in that gorgeous voice of his.

He was wrecked and empty, and tears streamed down his face.

“Corvai,” he said, and his voice sounded as though it came from every window, from the crack running up the side of the tower, from within the earth and thundering through the sky. And he laughed. And when he laughed, more of the city collapsed.

“What are you doing?” Corvai sounded so small in comparison, so distant, or perhaps Azram couldn’t hear over the roar of his pulse, over the tumult of rage and pain that echoed through the empty halls of him.

“Me? Why, my dear, I’m finishing what you started.”

“What I—?”

Then, Corvai knew. Corvai knew, because Azram wanted him to, because it was unfair for Corvai to live in the dark when his machinations had brought this about. The world wasn’t ending, but it felt like Azram imagined Armageddon would.

Corvai reeled away, clutching his head as knowledge forced itself into him, great and terrible.

“I didn’t do this,” he said weakly.

“You mean to tell me,” Azram said with a patient smile, “that you _never_ reported in about all of this? About me, about the tower, about—” He couldn’t stop the manic laugh. “Of course you can’t.”

He couldn’t. Azram could feel the answer hanging off of him, forming on his tongue, in his heart, even if he didn’t have the courage to say it.

Poor _dear_.

“You can rebuild it,” Corvai said, flying forward with his hands up in a placating gesture. “You don’t have to do this. We can stop it; I can fix it.”

“I don’t have to,” Azram agreed, smiling wider when Corvai stopped coming closer. He could sense it, couldn’t he? When something was truly evil? “I could let you clean this up. Restore everything to the way it was, bring all the humans back.” 

“The humans?” Corvai looked around suddenly at the empty streets, listened to the sound of flames and wreckage and the cries of animals and the otherwise notable quiet. “Azram… Where are the humans?”

“Wherever they went,” he said. “Away from here, where they can start anew.”

“Why?”

Azram closed the distance between them in a flash, grabbing the front of Corvai’s shawl to keep him in place so he could understand, so he could see that Azram was exactly what he’d always suspected, everything that he’d allowed to exist through inaction. “Because I _can_.”

And, really, that was what it came down to.

He wasn’t going to rebuild this just to have it torn down again.

He’d rather salt the earth to prevent a thing from growing in its place ever again.

There was another flash, and Azram found himself blinking divine light out of his many, many eyes. When they opened again, the last of the humans and their guardian angel were gone.

Without a target for his anguish, his unending anger, Azram crumbled.

The tower, and every other building in Babilla, came crashing down with him.


	9. the idea.

Kneeling among the chaos and destruction, Azram had struggled with an idea.

It had first started nagging at him not long after Corvai left, when Azram leveled with city with his grief. It had stayed, demanding to be acknowledged while Azram forced his true form down. Wings, wheels, and eyes disappeared and left behind a small, lonely figure among the ruins of Babilla. Azram had ignored the idea desperately until the last of the radiance within him flickered and faded, a dying light in the face of the fast-approaching night.

But the idea hadn’t gone away. Ideas were persistent; it was what made them dangerous.

He needed to go back to Hell. He needed to tell Lucifer what had happened. Realistically, he needed to tell a version of events that absolved him of most of the guilt, that made it seem as though this had been planned, but Azram hadn’t been able to see how. The pounding of his thoughts had been too loud, too distracting, and then the idea had helpfully piped up again.

In his most unwise decision to date, Azram listened to it.

Azram ran.

### 2246 BC

Running wasn’t a literal process involving his legs or wings — that would have been untenable and, worse, exceedingly obvious to anyone who was looking for him. Instead, he took it as slow as he dared. He blended in.

After all, there were few animals as plentiful in human society as sheep.

Every camp, every village, every city had shepherds. They saw him, surprisingly tame, nonthreatening and alone, and eventually — occasionally with a little nudge from Azram — they found themselves wondering why they should refuse this bounty given to them. Why should they turn away a source of meat and wool? Even the wariest among them succumbed with enough time, and Azram stayed.

There were unfortunate but necessary evils that came with playing his part. Not long after deciding to take him in, the shepherds would take a knife to his ears, marking him as part of their flock. Most simply nicked the edges; a few cut off the tip of an ear. One particularly cruel human sawed the entirety of his right ear off while he shrieked and struggled against the ropes holding him captive. He’d tried not shrieking and struggling once, and it had so perturbed the human that they’d almost taken the knife to his throat instead.

Then, there were the dogs. Azram hadn’t been around when some Satan-blessed human decided to try their luck befriending wolves, and he didn’t know if it was more impressive or annoying that it _worked_. Most of the time, they were either by the shepherds’ sides or ranging out in search of predators, but some of the humans had gotten clever enough to use their dogs to help direct their flocks. They were loyal, friendly, and unfortunately persistent.

Luckily, it took very little infernal interference to get the blessed things to leave him well enough alone. He’d only had to get truly unpleasant twice. The first time, the dog had caught him meandering off and hadn’t taken kindly to Azram’s methods of intimidation. It had attacked him; he had killed it. The second dog took to them too well. It had started baring its teeth at nothing and then took to biting any creature that irritated it. When another ram had insisted on butting heads with Azram over a female that he, frankly, had no interest in, the corrupted dog had ripped one of the sheep’s legs off. Azram had dispatched it swiftly before it could kill anything else.

He hoped Hell was enjoying its new pet. He hoped that it would be seen as the gift it was. He hoped, and that was his first mistake.

If he had returned immediately after the tower fell, if he had given any excuse, it would be better than to return now. Lucifer would want to know about the delay, and whatever gifts he had sent them wouldn’t be enough to justify the discrepancy.

As it was, Azram hadn’t technically violated the terms of their agreement, and he thought that it might count for something. He’d stayed on Earth, however much the stars had called to him. He’d stayed in Mesopotamia. He was right where he’d said he’d be, albeit not in the expected form and not doing what he’d said he’d be doing.

Lucifer could call him back at any time, but he hadn’t. Why hadn’t he?

What was he waiting for?

Hell _had_ noticed that Babilla was gone, hadn’t it?

Azram was not hopeful or deluded enough to believe that Lucifer had released him. It only made him more fretful. The fall of the tower had been a lightning strike, and Azram had been waiting fourteen years for the thunder that must follow.

Today, like the others before it, was disturbingly quiet.

* * *

It had been his idea, was the thing. His suggestion, his promise, his _word_ could be used to take him apart. He was guilty, and Lucifer was not prone to fits of mercy or forgiveness.

He had said, once, that the punishment for betrayal would be better than the punishment for disappointment.

What, Azram had to wonder, if he had done both?

The newest flock milled around Azram, away from him, creating a wide berth as they sensed his agitation. The more he tried to calm himself, the heavier the feeling settled inside of him: a writhing, twisting discomfort that made his skin feel too tight, that made his wings — even tucked away as they were — ache.

This shepherd hadn’t marked his ears. He had no dog. Most frequently, he had a staff in his hands, a kind smile, and a gentle voice. He was the truest successor of Abel’s legacy that Azram had yet met. The flock followed him, came at his calling, and prospered.

The shepherd noticed when the other sheep avoided Azram even if he couldn’t feel the subtle demonic warning that was keeping all other living creatures away from him.

It was foolish. Azram had brought the city to the ground, what could one human do in the face of that power? What hope did he have?

Yet, the shepherd perched upon a hillside, at perfect ease as he watched the flock graze. His eyes lingered warmly upon Azram more than any other animal, and Azram, though out of practice with such things, thought that the shepherd must be blessed.

Which was quite unfortunate, for where there were blessings, there were typically also angels.

He kept a wary eye on the sky, waiting, anticipating… but as far as he could tell, he was alone.

Azram was used to loneliness. He had been lonely in Heaven’s cold, open spaces. He had been one of two Cherubim in the Garden, and, apart from when they received their orders, he had never spoken to the other who was stationed on the far side at the Western Gate. He had been lonely in his dark cell. Even when spending almost every moment at Lucifer’s beck and call, there had been a vast and profound yearning that he had wanted to shatter for having the audacity to survive when everything else within him withered and died.

He hadn’t quite managed. There was a persistent ache, a distinct, pained signature on every unspooling thought, at the center of every torrent of emotion that eventually faded to a pervading numbness.

Azram often thought of a voice that was meant to be heard in chorus rising on its own and long fingers moving over a lyre’s strings.

He thought of these, then forbade himself from the name, the face, the memories that had made the longing a bearable torture.

Azram was used to loneliness; he was not immune to it.

The shepherd perched on a hillside, at perfect ease. His smiles were gracious and kind.

When Azram lay in the grass near him, the shepherd soothed. His voice was rough and imperfect but sweet.

Perhaps it was a poor substitute, but it was a relief all the same.

* * *

All humans eventually succumbed to the same insatiable hunger that had led Eve and Adam to sink their teeth into the apple, that had led Cain to picking up the sword. There was a bleak, empty space inside them that they sought endlessly to fill, consuming with a voracious appetite. Sins were the stains left behind, lingering echoes of destruction of the self and others. Azram knew intimately what sin felt like in a human soul, and he knew when the taint was fresh: an open, oozing wound instead of layers upon layers of knotted scars.

The shepherd’s soul was bleeding, and he held a rope in his hands.

Azram struggled because humans expected him to struggle. He bit until rope bound his mouth closed and kicked until his limbs were tied to one another. Defenseless, he thrashed mostly for show.

When he was truly frightened — when he saw the shrine and the pyre — he went absolutely still. 

Azram tried to banish the bindings, but the shepherd was blessed. His ropes had run through his blessed fingers and had become blessed in turn. He had chosen his offering, and it would not escape its destiny.

The prayer went up from the shepherd and his family, thanking their god for the sun he had hung in the sky, for the winds that had carried them to their home in the wake of the tower’s collapse, for keeping them together. The stain of sin darkened each of their souls.

The shepherd wielded his blessed knife that opened a wound Azram could not heal.

Azram’s body burst apart before they lit the pyre.

* * *

Discorporation didn’t hurt. It couldn’t. His celestial body was not made to feel pain. It didn’t even have lungs, but he managed to feel suffocated without them.

Azram stumbled against one of Hell’s sticky, filthy walls, his eyes staring ahead, unseeing and empty. The press of bodies was as claustrophobic as ever, and he could hear someone’s distant, faded screams. For a moment, Azram’s attention faltered. He wondered if it was a human shrieking or a demon, and the thought had scarcely formed before it was dragged down, beneath the surface of a turbulent ocean where nameless, violent emotions roiled.

A single thought — a blessed _idea_ — wove through the turmoil and whispered sweetly in his ear. Without a body, he could possess a human. He could take their fragile, mortal body, choke their free will the way one smothered a flame. He could run, body to body, until—

Until, he thought bitterly, _what_?

“No,” he murmured, shaking his head, trying to calm the frantic shudders that wracked his inhuman form. “No, no—”

Possession would only end one of two ways: either angels would expel him from the body, or someone from Hell would drag him back by force. A reckoning was inevitable; the only real question was who he would be answering to when it happened.

Running had made it worse already. If he ran again, it would only put him deeper in the hole he’d already made.

He had to stay. It mortified him beyond reason, but it was the only way he could regain a modicum of control. It was the only option. He had to stay here, rooted to Hell, and eventually peel himself off the wall and return to the courtroom.

Azram rifled through his options, shrinking further against the wall. His wings came up, providing the slightest, most feeble barrier between him and the other denizens of Hell.

He had to have a plan. He had to.

It was the only way he would ever walk out of here again.

* * *

“Where’ve you been?” Caruk asked when Azram stepped into the antechamber. They didn’t bother to get up from their desk, leaned back as easy as usual. Azram could almost take comfort from that. It had been almost two decades since Azram had last made the long walk through Hell to the courtroom to give an update on Babilla, but Caruk acted as though he’d missed a meeting and caused the most minor of inconveniences.

Caruk could have pulled the answer out of his head, but they didn’t. Azram wished they had; he wished he knew how fruitless this was going to be before he stepped through the heavy doors and began playing for much higher stakes.

“Earth.”

Caruk rolled their eyes, asked, “What happened to your _body_?”

“I sacrificed it.” He straightened the vague manifestation of clothing that he’d been given — a standard black robe that was as much a part of him as anything else in his current form — and met Caruk’s questioning eyes. “For the glory of our Lord.”

He wanted Caruk to ask, to give him an excuse to run through the story aloud before he went into the courtroom, but Caruk didn’t. As if Azram had said nothing interesting, they waved their hand towards the doors.

“You know your way in.”

They didn’t feel the need to announce him.

Maybe, he dared to think, the others wouldn’t realize how long twenty years really was, either. Maybe his warped misunderstanding of time was unique to him, and to the rest of them, this had only been a blink.

Maybe, Azram thought but did not hope. He didn’t dare.

The doors were as heavy as ever, but they swung open.

There were six demons in the courtroom: the five Kings and the Lord of all whose brilliance swallowed Azram whole in an instant, pulling him in with an effortless magnetism until he stood before the dais.

He gave a courteous bow, enjoying the moment of reprieve before he forced himself to stand and looked, as he always did, unflinching into Lucifer’s light. “Morningstar.”

“Pet,” Lucifer said. Then, without a moment’s hesitation: “Beelzebub, continue.”

The Court spoke over him, around him, neither acknowledging his presence nor hurrying along to allow him to give his report. Azram stood at attention with his hands folded behind him. Rigid, still — without a corporal form, he was in perfect control of himself. The urge to tremble was nothing more than an impulse to make him seem weak, chastised, afraid, and had he any expectation of mercy, he might have allowed it. He might have paid attention to the _crowded_ feeling inside of him, the way everything felt simultaneously like too little and too much.

Such frivolities had their place, and it wasn’t here. His fingers tangled and gnarled together, tension winding up his arms to his shoulders, and he held utterly still.

### 2245 BC

Immortals did not typically move at the pace of humanity. Azram had to keep reminding himself: this was normal.

He should be grateful. The time he was being given allowed him to turn his story over in his head until it smoothed out, until he thought he’d found every conceivable hole and sewed it up properly. He should be grateful that he didn’t have a body that could start aching, that he couldn’t feel tired. He should be—

But he wasn’t.

Nor was he grateful when Lucifer gave a heavy sigh and said, “Leave us,” and the Kings finally disappeared, leaving the two of them alone.

Azram waited. Words crowded on his tongue, demanding that he speak, but offering up an explanation without being asked was all-but admitting guilt. He couldn’t seem too eager, too impatient.

“What am I going to do with you?” Lucifer asked, leaning back in his throne, effortlessly imperious.

It was almost a relief to be asked something that had a correct answer. “Whatever you desire, my Lord.”

Lucifer’s lips curved into a smile. “Of course. You would never deny me.”

Having his words repeated to him made Azram stiffen, but he gave a nod. “Never,” he repeated solemnly as if the undeniable truth of it would outweigh the fact that he had fled. A moment of madness had stretched into a decade, but he had come back. He had, and he needed it to seem intentional.

But Lucifer didn’t ask. For long moments, Lucifer simply lounged artfully while his eyes held onto Azram as if preparing to peel him apart to find the truth he’d rather keep buried.

When he finally moved, it was to wave a hand. “Kneel.”

Azram obeyed. He sank to his knees before the dais and spread his wings past the point of discomfort. He bowed his head until he felt the razor-sharp barbs of one of Lucifer’s floating feathers beneath his chin, tipping his head up to face him.

“Tell me what happened in Babilla.”

It was risky, but— “Starting from where?”

Lucifer chuckled slightly, and the feather slid further up the line of Azram’s jaw, cutting a thin, neat line along the angle of it. Black blood dripped onto the feather, trickled down his neck. It didn’t hurt, but the slow bleed was a constant reminder that it could get worse — _would_ get worse — the moment Lucifer wanted it to. “Wherever you feel it’s appropriate.” Then, killingly soft, “Don’t play games with me, pet.”

It was likely the only warning he would get.

He wanted to take a breath, to center himself, but Azram wasn’t willing to give Lucifer something to read into. He’d done enough of that already.

“They finally struck down the tower. I can’t be sure—”

“Pointless to speculate,” Lucifer said, but Azram shook his head.

“I had turned it into a house of worship for you. The greatest monument of human achievement, and it was yours.”

Lucifer’s eyes burned brighter, searing into Azram.

“Their favorite creations,” he said, wishing to blink the stars from his eyes and wanting for them to consume him all at once, “worshiping you so brazenly. Hardly something They could ignore forever.” Lucifer nodded once. The sharp feather slid across his throat, opening another hairline cut, silently commanding him to continue. “They broke the earth open, and sent it toppling down.”

“And where were you?”

“In my rooms,” Azram answered. The feather dug into his incorporeal flesh. A warning, a note of disappointment. He’d expected this to be where it got rough, because this was when he would start lying. “There wasn’t much time to act. I decided to spare the greater triumph. I blew the humans away before the angels—”

“Angels?” Lucifer asked, an edge to his voice.

“I saw a Seraph, but I can’t imagine he was alone.”

“Did you know him?”

The options were plenty and disastrous. A familiarity with Corvai could be as terrible as refusing to learn anything about his enemy. If Lucifer wanted to find fault with an answer here, he would, regardless of what Azram said. “No, my Lord. An angel’s an angel. It makes very little difference to me beyond that.”

There was a tightness around Lucifer’s eyes, a moment of recognition, and Azram felt a sudden chill run through him.

Lucifer knew he’d lied.

Lucifer _knew_.

“So,” he said, deliberately slow. “You blew them away.”

“Before they could be killed, yes.”

Lucifer could have pulled the truth from him like pulling off his wings — he didn’t need to hear Azram’s version of the story when he could take it from him. Lucifer knew he’d lied. Yet, he allowed Azram to talk. He prompted him.

Was this a test? Was Lucifer counting his sins to decide how heavy the punishment would fall?

“They destroyed the rest of the city. Better to burn the lot to the ground than to suffer a cult.” The word fit terribly into his mouth, uncomfortable and untrue.

“And you?”

Azram forced a slight smile, aware that his eyes were slightly too wide, that his form was trembling just so, as if longing to break apart. “I could hardly return on that note, could I?”

“I suppose not,” he agreed with a slow nod.

Lucifer agreeing with him was worse.

“I visited the people I blew away. I found your worshipers; I gave them renewed purpose. When I was done, I found your most devout followers — the ones you blessed — and I gave myself to you once again.”

Lucifer’s gaze held mercilessly onto him, boring through him. Azram settled back on his heels, barely resisting the urge to tuck his wings in, to shrink.

Even if Lucifer knew, Azram couldn’t deviate, couldn’t give him further reason to make whatever came next worse.

Not that Lucifer needed a reason. He never had.

Lucifer rose from his throne, the last of his smile fading. More feathers floated in the air around him, multiplying with every step he took down from the dais. “Wings,” he said, and chuckled when Azram forced his wider. “No, pet. All of them. Eyes, too.”

His form shook harder, the edges fracturing. But what point was there in succumbing to fear now? Lucifer would pull him back together as many times as it took until he was kneeling here again, until he was obedient. With a rustle, his wings began to multiply into their endless manifolds, and the more that formed, the more eyes there were to wink open one at a time. He could see the entire courtroom, could see Lucifer as he circled slowly behind him.

He could see the multitude of razor-sharp feathers, and could only hold himself as still as possible while waiting for the inevitable.

Azram could not change what was coming. He couldn’t brace for it, couldn’t fight back.

Lucifer waved his hands, reforming Azram’s body around him. His atoms trembled, fought to separate before being bound together, waiting, and the waiting was, itself, an agony. His heart lurched in his chest, and the first lonely beat had hardly resounded within him than there was a flash of white and everything — _everything_ — went dark.

Azram fell forward, hands braced on the floor as Lucifer’s feathers cut through and blinded every single one of his eyes. They raked lines of fire across his wings, rending feathers, muscle, and bone. Azram muffled his screams until the first wing was severed from his body. More followed, a cacophony of pain and feathers, sprawling along the floor of the courtroom. He cried out, bleeding tears rolling freely from every unseeing eye, but despite the agony, he kept his wings spread, presented to be torn apart as Lucifer saw fit.

The trembling of his body became too great, and he fell forward onto his forearms, barely able to breathe around the hitching sobs.

He couldn’t tell when the assault stopped, but it did. It did, and Lucifer’s freezing-burning hands traveled over the wounds, pressing the agony deeper than his skin.

“Now,” Lucifer said calmly, barely audible over Azram’s frantic attempts to catch his breath, to stifle himself, to sob in silence. “Do you know where you went wrong?”

Azram arched into Lucifer’s touch, desperate for a single iota of relief. None was given. Lucifer pushed him away, let him collapse on the floor, aching and alone. His chest seized, ears instantly searching for the sound of steps, but Lucifer’s feet were silent. “I can’t _hear_ you.”

“N— nh—” Azram tried to speak but couldn’t. Unable to know if Lucifer had taken that from him or if he had stolen it from himself, he shook his head, feeling it quake down the length of his body.

“You _assumed_,” Lucifer said, his voice so close to Azram’s ear that he turned towards it, seeking, only to have it taken away from him again, sliding to the other side and away in an instant, “and you acted to save yourself.”

A hand cupped his chin, pulling him up. “There is _nothing_ in Hell or on Earth that you can hide from me.”

Lucifer’s lips brushed over the fresh cuts on his eyelids. “Though it was amusing to watch, pet. Nostalgic, even.”

The kiss was another pain, lancing through his head and down his body until he was struggling not to curl up in a feeble attempt to protect himself.

“You looked like you did, then. In the Garden. Absssolutely _terrified_.” The hiss traveled through his bones, and Azram scrambled away on reflex when he felt sharp scales sliding along his injured body. Lucifer coiled around him, all muscle and cutting scales — unlike any actual snake that Azram had ever seen — pulling him down until he was immobile and held, shuddering, still.

### 2072 BC

Lucifer never healed him with a snap, and Azram knew it would never change. The Devil preferred for healing to be slow, as torturous a process as the way the pain had been inflicted. It was a constant reminder, a warning, and a punishment rolled into one. Of course, some parts of Azram’s body had to be helped, but Lucifer found a way to make that process unbearable as well.

He always found a way.

Azram knelt before Lucifer’s throne, facing the court. His eyes itched when they were exposed to the light, but Lucifer had bound his hands behind him, anchored to his throne to prevent him from seeking relief. All over his body, eyes _itched_. They opened, teared up, and closed just as quickly. When he could — when he was allowed — Azram kept all of his eyes closed, choosing darkness over the pain.

His wings had been stripped clean and reattached. They ached down to every new feather that poked out of the skin and slowly grew. Lucifer had anchored them, too, to keep Azram from flapping about until he was finally permitted to put them away, leaving only the usual two. Uneven, ugly, as Lucifer loved to remind him. As they all did.

Chains wrapped around his horns, pulling his head back to keep his posture straight and uncomfortable.

Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t flinch when he heard the low hiss of Lucifer heating up his touch.

The flame was searing pain, drawn slowly with a flame-hot claw between his shoulder blades. It was not Lucifer’s sigil, but the mark of ownership was clear.

He gasped only when Lucifer stopped and gave him a moment to breathe. Azram’s wings shook and his spine twisted as if he could get away from the brand, as if it weren’t part of the fabric of his being at this point.

Every time it healed, Lucifer put it back.

Lucifer’s hand raked cruelly through his curls. Azram leaned into his touch without hesitation, choosing obedience, choosing what vague mercies he might be given rather than the punishment for flinching away.

“What do we say, pet?”

A shudder, a forced smile. He couldn’t hide that it was forced. He couldn’t, but Lucifer didn’t care.

Softly: “Thank you, Morningstar.”


	10. the archangels. (part one)

### 2065 BC

“My Lord.” Beelzebub’s voice was curt, irritated.

Ze was usually irritated when ze appeared in the courtroom to find them like this.

Azram sat astride Lucifer’s lap, knees digging into the arms of the throne. Lucifer’s fingers traced over the outer ring of his brand, teasing waves of pain through his favorite toy. Azram’s hands were bound in hellforged iron above his head, horns connected to the same chain. He could do little more than twitch, than whimper, than cum when Lucifer wrung pleasure out of him again and again and again.

His sense of shame was all-but completely absent. Lucifer had fucked that out of him, too.

“What is it?” Lucifer asked calmly, as if he weren’t lighting every single one of Azram’s nerves on fire. Azram kept as quiet as he could but gasped with relief when Lucifer relented.

“Thank you, my Lord,” he murmured for Lucifer’s ears alone.

Beelzebub rolled zir eyes. “Can we speak with you alone?”

Azram lifted his head, looking out to see that the other Kings had appeared on their thrones. 

It was rare for them to assemble without members of their Court, and rarer still for them to ask that he be sent away. He’d thought that the lot of them were smarter than that, but given the current state of affairs, they likely weren’t putting their best foot forward.

It took Azram mere seconds to suss out that the King on trial was Asmodeus. The King of Lust sneered from his own throne, legs thrown over one arm. His tentacles had wound around the arms and legs of the ornate chair, tightly gripping as he glared pointedly ahead instead of at anyone in particular, which was notable in and of itself as Asmodeus usually enjoyed watching as Lucifer tormented Azram.

The others were just as obvious. Mammon’s body was angled towards Asmodeus’s throne, all six arms tense and gripping his seat in order to hold himself back as he snarled. Tiamat — the least capable of subtlety — looked between Lucifer and Asmodeus, not bothering to hide her glee that someone other than her was in trouble. Belphegor, usually the hardest to rile, smoldered, flames crackling in the gaps of her carapace.

Lucifer scraped a claw over the brand, making Azram’s skin prickle with anticipation. Then, the Devil sighed. “No. I don’t believe I’m done with him yet.”

Beelzebub’s eyes narrowed, irritation flashing over zir face before ze smoothed it out. “If your Lordship recalls, we asked Asmodeus to send two of his _best_,” there was a low, threatening buzz beneath the word, and Asmodeus flinched, “up to Earth to sow some discord. Dukes Zepar and Furtur abandoned their mission to spread demonic seed, and have instead corrupted several thousand humans.”

“Who will be ours,” Asmodeus said stiffly, “once they die.”

“Which,” Tiamat said, “will be sooner than anticipated. Word is that Heaven’s sending an Archangel to deal with the problem.” She frowned. “Sandalphon.”

“Known, famously, for his restraint,” Mammon sneered at Asmodeus.

Sandalphon’s brand of justice had always been violent, unforgiving. Most angels held mercy to be a virtue; Sandalphon was not one of them.

“How was I to know they would send the Judge, of all angels?”

“So,” Lucifer said, dipping a clawed finger into his brand, scraping along Azram’s spine. Azram jerked, stiff, and his breathing stuttered. “Asmodeus, you can’t control your Dukes?”

Asmodeus’s mouth twitched into a scowl. “Furtur and Zepar ignored the plan against my wishes and while ignoring my warnings. I could either pull them back and ruin the work that they’d done, or I could let them continue, reap the rewards, and punish them after. We’ve taken so many souls through their efforts.”

Azram’s head lolled forward as agony sung through his body. Every muscle tightened to a painful degree, piling hurt on top of hurt.

“What do you think?” Lucifer asked, likely expecting an answer despite the fact that Azram had narrowly missed biting through his own tongue.

He unlocked his jaw, pushing a pained noise out of his throat. He scrambled to find words, to string them into coherency, but Lucifer didn’t relent.

“F— failed the mission,” he gasped finally.

The power inside him _twisted_, tearing through him. Azram’s fingers curled around the chain, seeking helplessly to hold on to _something_ as he was torn apart and remade.

The chains jingled as he shook, and the shaking continued even after the pain stopped.

“Elaborate,” Lucifer said.

Azram swallowed thickly, focused on the fingers that trailed down his bared spine, the soft, threatening rake of claws. There was a way, he was sure, to be gracious about Asmodeus’s failure, but Azram couldn’t find it in him to care. Even for the sake of self preservation, avoiding the pain that Lucifer promised with every unhindered touch was more important than cowing to Asmodeus.

“The goal, as I recall, was— was to create half demon, half human children. In—” Azram’s breath stuttered as Lucifer’s hand continued to slip lower. It didn’t matter. Not when Lucifer nudged his thighs further apart, not when the claws touched his delicate flesh, drawing back towards where a pucker would be if he chose to manifest it. Azram made sure that Lucifer would find what he was looking for. “In the hopes that they’d be able to join the Legions of Hell.”

He lifted his eyes to where Asmodeus sat, lips curled in a sneer.

“Furtur, Zepar — if they reproduced at all, Sandalphon will wipe them out. Even if they’re sent to us, they won’t be ready for— for whatever steps would transition them from human to demon.”

“I don’t care if they’re _ready_,” Asmodeus said.

“You should. I doubt it’s a process you can force.” Azram took another shaking breath as his body twitched. Lucifer slipped two claws past the ring of muscle. Asmodeus’s tentacles tightened; his ink-dark eyes narrowed. “And,” Azram continued, voice hitching slightly. “Courtesy of their failure to follow orders, the number we have to work with is so much smaller than it would be—” Lucifer forced a wave of pleasure through him, and his words broke on a near-whimper. “Had— had they obeyed, had the half-breeds multiplied.”

Asmodeus seethed in the near-silence of the courtroom, broken by the noises Azram couldn’t smother. “I will not be talked down to by a _toy_.”

“Why not?” Lucifer asked, pushing more sensation through Azram until he arched, mouth soundlessly agape, body convulsing in its bonds as he came. “He’s right.”

A soft murmur, an expected refrain as he came back to his body: “Thank you, Morningstar.”

“Then I’ll go and fetch them,” Asmodeus said.

Lucifer scoffed, twisting his fingers deeper into Azram. “No, you won’t. You had ample opportunity to correct their behavior before now and failed to do so. It wasn’t _your_ plan they ruined, Asmodeus. It was _mine_.”

“My Lord,” Asmodeus said, voice dripping with false reverence. “It seems such a petty misunderstanding with which to waste your time.”

“My time is already being wasted.” Something hot and sharp pricked at Azram’s insides, spreading like a fire up from where Lucifer had planted it. He was consumed with sweet agony. “Though, you _are_ right. This is hardly something I should be expected to deal with. My presence on Earth would only alarm Heaven.”

“Do you intend to send another King, then, in your stead?” Asmodeus’s gaze flicked accusingly to Beelzebub.

Lucifer’s other hand lay, suddenly possessive, on Azram’s throat as he pressed his fingers inexorably deeper.

He knew what was coming a split second before Lucifer said it.

“I’ll send _him_.”

Asmodeus lurched forward in his chair with a snarl. “No.”

Azram’s lips twitched, curling into a slight smile as Lucifer stilled. The Devil’s anger was cold and vast. Asmodeus had the common sense to realize he’d made a mistake, and the look on his face wavered.

“No?” Lucifer asked with a vicious amusement. “My _toy_ to fetch yours. Seems fitting to me.”

Asmodeus eased back into his seat stiffly. “I’m merely _concerned_.” A sharp smile, “After all — we play differently in my Kingdom.”

“I believe he’s more than familiar with how you govern your subjects.”

Asmodeus scoffed, but his gaze fell away from Lucifer, and his hands curled into fists.

“Lord Lucifer,” Azram breathed in the ensuing, accusing quiet. “I can handle Zepar and Furtur.”

Lucifer snapped his fingers, freeing Azram from the chains. He placed his trembling hands on the arms of Lucifer’s throne, leaning heavily on them and refusing to collapse.

* * *

His instructions were sparse, and he supposed it was by design. The last time he’d been on Earth, Azram had proved that he couldn’t be trusted. Lucifer was testing him to find out if he’d learned his lesson, and Azram didn’t want to know what happened if he failed.

A certain pressure settled immediately on his soul, a supernatural warning that there was something to be feared near him. Azram let it wrap around him, let the fear chill him to the bone, and then ignored it as he began to walk towards the greatest concentration of celestial energy.

If Sandalphon found him, so be it. His job wasn’t to avoid the Archangel. It was to find the Dukes and return them to Hell by any means necessary.

Sodom was strangely quiet, and the streets disturbingly empty. If not for the steady thrum of power calling to him, Azram might have thought it deserted or the punishment already passed down, meted out, and thousands of humans dead.

As it was, it was like looking through a distorted mirror. Azram couldn’t know these streets, these buildings — he couldn’t know the lives that had carved them out. But without signs of life, it was easy to think about Babilla, to feel the ghosts of a life he’d all-but forgotten. The next corner might turn to someplace familiar, and he would be back among the people he knew, the city he’d liked far more than he’d ever admit.

It never did.

Instead, he heard the distant cries of humans, the low roar of a gathered crowd large enough to rattle his teeth. Azram rolled his shoulders, prepared to wade into the thick of it, when he became aware that the bulk of demonic presence wasn’t there.

Cowards, he thought with the vaguest amusement and stepped sideways through several miles in a blink to emerge through a different alley.

He expected them to be running, tails between their legs at the realization that someone had been sent for them, but the two demons actually slowed down at the realization they were no longer alone, turning nearly-identical smiles to him as he stepped out into the daylight.

“Azram,” Furtur called out as if they were friends, as if they’d been expecting him this entire time.

It wouldn’t surprise him if Asmodeus had contacted them to warn of his coming.

“Duke Furtur,” he said with a slight bow of his head. “Duke Zepar.”

“It’s been a while,” Zepar said brightly, her laugh sounding like a soothing bell. “Too long.”

Azram was always suspicious of demons with the trappings of manners. It usually meant they were up to something.

He tucked his hands behind himself and folded them together, cocking his head. “I suppose it has.” With a polite smile of his own, he asked, “How has the work been?”

“Great!” Furtur said, leaning an arm on Zepar’s shoulder, his grin ticking wider. “Drew the attention of an Archangel.”

“Is that so,” Azram said in a way that didn’t quite warrant a question mark.

“What about you?” Zepar asked, feigning concern that was betrayed by a cruel glint in her eyes. “You’re awfully far from your warm lap.”

“Unfortunately. My Lord had work for me to attend to elsewhere,” he said, utterly unruffled.

“Strange that he’d send you here,” Furtur mused. “Considering Sandy’s probably going to wipe Sodom off the map before the day’s out.”

“Isn’t it,” Azram agreed, smiling wider. “Speaking of: where are all your humans, hm?” He walked closer. “Escaping, I hope.”

“Obstructing. Hopefully putting on a show.” Brightly, all teeth, Furtur pushed away from Zepar, prowling, “You want to see?”

“And draw Sandalphon’s ire? That seems unwise.”

“Please,” Zepar purred, suddenly at his side, her hand traveling over the bare skin of his exposed arm. “As if your master would let you be discorporated long.” She stepped closer, generous chest nudging his arm as she held onto him. “And you’d put in a good word for us, wouldn’t you? Remember all the times we used to play together? How you used to beg?”

“We do,” Furtur murmured as he slid into Azram’s personal space, mirroring his partner. His hand slid, warm and firm around Azram’s upper arm.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific,” Azram said calmly, eyes flicking between them both. “There were quite a lot of you.”

Together, they pushed demonic power into him. Azram rolled his shoulders against their touch, shrugging it off as if it was nothing.

“Aw, lamb,” Zepar sighed. “We could’ve had fun.”

“Well,” Furtur chuckled. “_We_ might anyway.”

They each grabbed onto him tightly, pressing bruises into his skin, and the world around them twisted. The silence of abandoned streets was replaced with the sudden cacophony of a crowd, the press of bodies, a frenzy of noise and heat.

Azram was dimly aware that they were closer, now, to that feeling of foreboding, the warning that Sandalphon was present.

Ah. This was what the Dukes meant by ‘a show’.

“Doesn’t it look like fun?” Zepar asked, excitedly tickling his ear with her warm breath.

“Not terribly,” he said, letting the honesty cut through her excitement and the desire that bled through the husky tone of her voice. “But it does look like you’ve perfected this little trick.” He tilted his head, looking at Zepar. “A pity it’s not the one you were meant to be doing.”

Zepar looked around him, smile widening in silent communication with Furtur.

Azram twisted, bringing his elbow up into Furtur and putting enough infernal force behind the impact that the Duke went sprawling. Zepar’s fingers turned into claws, ripping into the flesh of his arm and pulling him close with a snarl. He gave her a sharp grin, all teeth and malice. “I wouldn’t, if I were you, dear.”

Zepar’s lips curled in a disdainful smirk, and she shoved him with all her demonic strength into the crowd of humans. He lost his balance and fell, but his back never hit the ground.

Hands caught him and pulled him into the writhing mass of humans. Bodies pressed in on every side, overheated and slick with sweat. The air was suffocating with cloying sweetness that weighed heavily in his lungs, attempting to pull him under the same Lustful temptation currently overwhelming the humans of Sodom. Azram turned off the need to breathe and kicked away from the humans touching him only to collide with another body behind him. Arms wrapped around him in an instant, fingers sneaking into the neck of his robe, greedily staking claim on the skin beneath. A warm breath ran over the shell of his ear, “You… I’d like to _know_ you.”

Heads turned towards him, hazy eyes focused on him, his clothes, his current lack of participation in the demonic orgy. The cuts from Zepar’s claws stung like she’d placed a beacon within them, pulling the humans towards him.

He could escape. He could, but doing so would instantly reveal himself to Sandalphon.

If he got discorporated before sending Furtur and Zepar back, it would be a failure in Lucifer’s eyes.

Azram gritted his teeth as a hand raked through his hair, yanking his head back for a mouth to ravage his neck. His clothes were being torn from his shaking body. What was one more degradation? What was pain, really, to someone like him? Could humans do anything that would be worse than returning to Lucifer in disgrace, than inviting a new punishment for another monumental failure?

A hand gripped his cock, dry and firm and wholly unpleasant.

Azram slicked it with a blink. There was no need to make this even worse.

* * *

It was over.

In a blaze of righteous fury, thundering condemnation, it all ended, leaving him in a deafening silence, overwhelmed by the smell of death and by the pain that wracked through his body. Azram had been able to spare himself, but the force of withstanding the power of an Archangel made him collapse. He pulled himself free, the last dick slipping out of his abused body, swiftly followed by a spill of cum.

He could feel Zepar and Furtur on Earth still, and he gave a bloodied smile. They hadn’t returned of their own free will, and that was the last mistake they’d likely get to make. If they’d gone back to Hell, they couldn’t be held responsible for whatever the humans _chose_ to do, regardless of how much they had interfered beforehand. By staying, they had removed that excuse. Every violation, every abuse of Lucifer’s favorite toy was theirs to claim.

“What do we have here?”

Azram froze, turning his head just enough to see the sandaled feet of an angel shrouded in large robes of the purest white. His eyes crawled up the Archangel who watched him with a smile, revealing flashes of gold between his teeth.

“Reaping what you’ve sown, eh?”

“Something like that,” Azram managed in a wrecked whisper, his abused throat aching too much to speak any louder.

Sandalphon’s smug grin and the way his eyes crawled over Azram’s exposed, injured body made the demon’s blood run cold. “Pity this had to happen,” he said, full of false concern, his voice dripping with barely-concealed disdain. “A shame you rebelled.”

He snapped his fingers, leaving every ache, every bruise, every cut, every smear of slick and every stripe of cum though he clothed Azram in black robes.

Looking all-too satisfied with himself, he spread his white wings, and in a flash of light, he was gone.

“Fuck you, too,” Azram snarled, weakly pushing himself up off the ground.

He had to find the Dukes and dispatch them to their eternal reward.

Then, he was going to go back to Hell, and he was going to go for the first-ever willing swim in the lake of fire.


	11. the archangels. (part two)

Of all the many terrible truths Lucifer had told him over the years, the one Azram most readily believed was that there was nothing in Hell or on Earth that he could truly hide. If there was something Lucifer wanted to know, he would find out through whatever means were necessary.

Reshaping the truth into something more palatable was grounds for punishment. So was telling the absolute, honest truth.

It was impossible to save himself but not impossible to protect something of his, even if it was something so easily twisted and ruined as his pride. 

Azram summoned what little strength he’d gathered. It wrapped around him like a light cloth, catching on the worst of his injuries, and pulled and tugged over them until he was snugly bound. With great effort, he ripped it from his body, pulling the wounds and filth off his skin and banishing them with a wave of his hand. He looked haggard, exhausted, but the physical proof of his forced participation was gone.

His legs wobbled, straining to carry his weight, but he did not fall.

Azram set his eyes on the horizon, looking through the smoke and flame to where the Dukes had fled.

Heaven wouldn’t stop him now which meant this disagreement could be settled on Hell’s terms.

Azram’s wings opened to be used for the first time since they’d been stripped of all their feathers. He still remembered how. They propelled him forward, an endless and hypnotic dance, until he was bearing down on Zepar and Furtur.

Once upon a time, he had been a warrior. It was time that they remembered.

To their credit, they didn’t cry for mercy. 

To his, they didn’t have the chance.

There was a great and terrible rage that had been simmering for over one-hundred years, unactionable until this moment. Azram burned out past exhaustion, consumed with a fury that lasted beyond his mortal form. In the nanosecond between his body burning up and his essence being dragged to Hell, he managed to grip both Furtur and Zepar, entwining with them as they plummeted back into the endless halls.

The impact _shook_ the foundations of Hell, and Azram let them bare their sharp teeth, let them dig into him, let them _try_ to wrest his anger from him with the pain they inflicted.

It wasn’t enough.

They burst apart, and Azram didn’t have the strength to force them to reform. He snarled wordlessly and slumped to the floor. Demons stepped around him, on him, leaving black, bloodied footprints trailing through the hallway away from him.

* * *

“You want us to believe that you survived a smiting by _Sandalphon_.”

Azram turned a bright smile to Tiamat and spoke frankly. “I couldn’t care less what you believe. It happened. I was left by the Dukes to perish alongside the humans, but I survived. If you need to,” he spread his hands, “_take_ it from me.”

Let them see. Let them see every Lust-driven human, let them see every unwanted ecstasy, let them see his body taken from him again and again and again — it wasn’t as if they hadn’t seen it before.

He had never belonged to himself.

“That won’t be necessary,” Lucifer said, deceptively calm.

It didn’t matter if Lucifer believed him or not. It didn’t matter if Lucifer had known that he was sending Azram into the jaws of the beast, if it had been a calculated risk, or if he had ordered Asmodeus to warn the Dukes of Azram’s coming.

It didn’t matter because it didn’t change a thing.

“My Lord,” Azram said with great deference, anchoring himself to the eye of the storm that raged within him.

It was over, and soon, it wouldn’t matter what he felt, what he thought, what the truth was or wasn’t.

None of this mattered.

### 1859 BC

“Did you know Michael?”

He never trusted a question from Lucifer, regardless of how casual the tone, how soft his hands, how gentle he could seem when he wanted to. Azram didn’t trust it, but it made the most sense to answer honestly. After all, he hadn’t seen Michael since before the Earth had been created. “Yes.” A thick swallow, leaning into the tense hand that carded through his curls. “Michael taught us—” No, that wasn’t quite right. Azram flinched, course corrected. “The Cherubim how to use a flaming sword.”

“Mm,” Lucifer mused. “Lot of good it did you.” Azram nodded enough for Lucifer to feel the movement of his head without dislodging him. “A pity you didn’t bring it with you.”

Azram could only imagine what Lucifer would do to him if he had a blessed blade and divine flame at his disposal. He could imagine, and none of it was pleasant.

But he could offer a solution. It was always better to offer, to show initiative, to give willingly to keep Lucifer from taking quite so unbearably. He leaned his head on Lucifer’s knee, peering up at him with his flat prey eyes. “There’s always hellforged.”

“To arm you or me?”

“Either.”

Perhaps, once, he might have imagined driving the sword through Lucifer’s chest, being a weapon of God, redeeming himself through the violence he’d failed to enact in the Garden. Or he might have imagined Lucifer thrusting the blade into him, through him, purging him with forsaken divinity. Even if he could destroy Azram on his own, Lucifer would probably enjoy the morbid poetry of using a God-given gift to destroy the one to whom it’d been given.

As it was, now, Azram was merely hoping that Lucifer didn’t intend for him to pick up a sword again to face off with Michael. She was a warrior, and even in his prime, Azram hadn’t been able to best her. None of the Cherubim had.

“And what would we do if I gave you a sword, pet?”

“I suppose I would fight Michael.”

Lucifer’s lips split into a cruel smile, and he laughed. The hand in Azram’s hair tightened, pulling him closer between Lucifer’s legs. There was an undeniable _fondness_ to his voice. “Sweet pet, I would never send you to fight Michael. Survive her, maybe, but not _fight_.”

It seemed a strange place to draw a line in the sand, all things considered, but Azram wisely kept that thought to himself.

“Survive her, then.”

“I wouldn’t need to arm you for that.” Lucifer released his head, but Azram stayed where he had been put.

This was a conversation they’d never-quite had, a topic they’d learned to dance around: Azram for the sake of his safety and Lucifer presumably because it amused him. Lucifer hadn’t been surprised at the claim that Azram had survived Sandalphon’s power nor had he asked for proof in whatever form it might take. And now, Lucifer had all-but said that Azram could survive Michael if she was trying to destroy him.

The question Beelzebub had asked him over two-thousand years ago buzzed in the back of his head, unanswerable even now: _‘What_ are _you?’_

The Archangels were dangerous. Even Furtur and Zepar, two Dukes, had fled from Sandalphon after throwing Azram to the wolves. Sandalphon’s power had drained him; it had _hurt_. But he had survived with enough energy to fight.

“There’s a blessed child under Michael’s watchful gaze. It exists because of Heaven. I want to know why.”

“My Lord,” he murmured in acknowledgment. “What would you have me do with it?”

“What do you think?”

* * *

He struggled not to buckle under the immediate and overwhelming gravity. Azram had forgotten how it felt with Sandalphon nearby, refusing to hide the bulk of his strength. The tension, the pressure, the _warning_ wrapped tightly around his throat, settled onto his bones, unaware that he couldn’t heed it.

The memories stirred, muddying his focus. He tried not to think. He tried valiantly not to remember that Sandalphon had destroyed Sodom and her sister city of Gomorrah in a matter of moments. Thousands of humans died like it was nothing, yet he had _waited_ until Azram’s clothes had been ripped from his body, until humans forced their way into him, until pleasure had been wrenched from his unwilling body, until Azram had bled and suffered enough to rub salt in the open wound.

He tried to focus on the now, on the immediate and present danger of a potential flaming sword.

It got easier when he heard the footsteps scraping over rough terrain.

A weathered man with silver hair clutched a staff in his hand, leaning on it as he navigated up the mountainside. At his side was a lean child with his father’s nose and a bright smile that he turned out to the world around him. Spotting a flower growing amid the rocks, the boy crouched, reaching out with careful, gentle fingers until his father grunted, “Isaac.”

Isaac bounced to his feet and caught up in several quick steps.

That was Heaven’s child. Azram knew it as well as he knew himself as a demon.

Azram transformed into a sheep and followed at a distance. He risked one minor miracle, pulling the man’s name from the memory of the world around him. All people left their marks on the Earth — some more literally than others — and the plants, the soil, the stones, Mount Moriah herself breathed _Abraham_. Azram held his breath for a moment, but the sky didn’t crack open, there was no fall of Heavenly vengeance.

Instead, there was a disturbing quiet, as if a storm brewed moments away from whipping winds and a torrent of rain.

Azram’s ear twitched, following the sounds of their feet, of their voices.

“Father,” Isaac ventured. “Shouldn’t we have brought a sacrifice?”

Abraham’s voice was rough with age and grit. “The Lord will provide.”

Azram huffed irately, tail twitching and ears flicking back. Was everything They did to test Their children? To what end? To prove their endless, undeserved loyalty?

As they neared a peak near the summit, a spark of electricity ran through the air, and Azram’s wool stood on end. Ahead of him, he could hear Michael’s voice, even and unyielding. “Abraham, servant of the Lord.”

“I have come as you bid me.”

“This is your son Isaac?”

“The Lord gave Sarah and I only one.”

Azram didn’t dare to step closer. He didn’t dare to use his power to pull at the seams of the world, to see what was currently hidden over the ridge. He feigned to graze, ears swiveling to keep track of the conversation.

Michael asked, “Isaac, do you know what I am?”

Meekly, the boy answered, “An angel.”

“Do you know why you’re here?”

“To make an offering to the Lord.”

“Gather fuel for the pyre while I speak to your father.”

“Right!” Isaac scrambled over the ridge, skidding down the rocks towards where some scraggly trees and brush grew further down the hill. His sandals scraped along the ground, and he seemed to be withholding a laugh, eager to seem mature in the presence of the Archangel while battling the joy of childhood.

Azram thought to follow him, thought to act, but before he could take a step, Michael spoke again. “God will be pleased by your obedience.” Then, after a moment, she mused, “Does he know his part in today’s proceedings?”

“No.”

“Why? Would he not obey?”

Abraham sighed. “He would be afraid. I thought to let him rejoice a while longer.” Firmer, “If he needs to know now, I will tell him. We will make the journey again.”

“There’s no need.” There was a faint _whoosh_ as flame burst into being. “Use this blade. It won’t burn you.”

Azram lifted his head at that, the top of his eyes peering over the ridge. Michael held a flaming sword in her hands. The blade was sharp and golden, cloaked in flame. Her wings were extended, and one of her largest primary feathers was missing. Golden blood dripped onto the stones beneath her feet.

Azram snorted lightly, wondering when, exactly, it had become acceptable to give flaming swords away, and where the sacrifice was that Michael was supposed to bring.

Abraham took the sword in hand with all the reverence that should come with handling a holy relic. His hands trembled for a moment before he seemed to steel himself. “It will be done.”

“Faithful Abraham — God is watching.” 

In a whir of red hair and white wings, God’s Sword vanished, leaving one of her own behind in the hands of a human. Azram felt as though he could breathe again; the weight lifted instantly off his chest at her absence. Abraham’s face fell immediately, a dark grief stealing over his face before Isaac ran back up the path, arms full of kindling. He paused for only a moment, looking at where Michael had been before his eyes fell on the sword. “The Lord provides?” he asked, so tentative, so _innocent_, and Azram knew, suddenly, the game God wished to play with Their loyal servants.

“That He does. Come, let me show you how to build the pyre.”

With sick fascination, Azram watched, cloaked from human eyes, as Abraham lay the sword to the side. He and Isaac constructed the sacrificial pyre with careful hands, murmuring prayers and thanks. When it was ready, Abraham turned to his son.

“Give me your hands.”

Isaac held his hands out, and Abraham took them with all tenderness and love. His hard expression softened. “My son. I am so proud of you. I must ask that you have faith greater than your years, now.”

“Yes, Father,” Isaac agreed, and Azram gritted his teeth as Abraham held Isaac with one hand, reaching up with the other to the coil of rope looped over his shoulder. Isaac watched with a nervous, skittering gaze, flashing from Abraham’s face to the rope down to where he was held. The panic didn’t set in until Abraham rounded behind him and began to tie his wrists together. “Father,” he started, voice pitching higher.

“You have nothing to fear.”

Isaac nodded but was clearly unable to believe it, staring back over his shoulder.

“You are a blessing, Isaac,” Abraham continued, his voice relentlessly gentle. “You were a gift from God to your mother and I. I have told you.”

Azram reached out with his power and searched. He could feel celestial presences on Earth, some close enough to be of note, but none were so overwhelming to indicate an Archangel. Michael had left the father to murder his son, and she departed the grisly scene before she had to see Isaac’s hesitation, his fear.

“Y— you have,” Isaac agreed with a nod, eyes wide. “I have been a good son.” Then, fearful, “Haven’t I?”

Azram hardly realized he was moving until he was halfway to the tangled overgrowth of brush where Isaac had found his kindling. It was foolish. Beyond foolish. 

Already, he was planning an argument: Heaven wanted the boy dead, so he’d needed to cross them in another way.

It was weak, and Lucifer would probably reject it. He would have Azram’s hide if he wanted it.

But, then, he would anyway, regardless of what actions he took here, now.

Isaac’s whimpered apologies rolled off the mountainside, and Azram thrust his woolly body into the shrubbery. With a twist of power, thorns and branches wove deeper into his wool, winding around his horns, holding him fast until his hooves were scraping fruitlessly against the ground. There was a wilder note to the boy’s crying, urgent pleading, and Azram opened his mouth and _shrieked_.

The noise echoed off the stones, louder than it had any right to be. Isaac’s crying was loud, but Azram was louder. He had to be.

Bleating, screaming, Azram thrashed in his self-made bonds until the soft hands of a child cupped his jaw. Isaac’s eyes were as dark as fertile earth, warm with compassion as he soothed. “There, there.” Tears shone at the corners of his eyes while others gathered at his chin, dripping onto ground. “It’s okay. We’ll get you free.” He swallowed thickly. “It’ll be over, soon.”

Abraham freed him only to bind him again, hoof to hoof and the last bit of rope wound around his mouth in a makeshift muzzle. He supposed he’d deserved that given that he’d tried to bite Abraham. The stupid human didn’t know any better, but how? How had he been able to harm his child, ignore his discomfort, his fear, with the willingness to follow through if there was no intervention?

How had he so much faith in one who had already failed him by asking him to be so cruel as a test of faith?

How could They give him something so precious only to wrench it away?

Isaac lay him upon the pyre as Abel had laid his own sacrifice all those years ago. Abraham picked the sword up from where he’d laid it, and in the firelight, Azram saw a glint.

He stared past the blade, eyes wide when he recognized the gleam of black scales, the gold eyes that gazed back at him from the shadow of several large rocks.

Azram stopped his struggling, glaring silently at the serpent, but Corvai didn’t move until Abraham put the blade to Azram’s throat. Azram watched with distant amusement as Corvai turned his head away, looking anywhere else but the sacrificial pyre, and then Azram saw nothing, felt nothing as his soul was ejected from its prison and brought, again, to the one it knew best.

* * *

Lucifer disapproved of his methods, but he was _fascinated_ by the information Azram brought him about Michael’s feathers.

“Wings.”

Azram’s hands curled against the floor of the courtroom, wishing for chains, wishing to be forced rather than to operate under his own willpower even as he unfolded them. Lucifer’s hand ran, proprietary, over a long feather from Azram’s uninjured left side. Lucifer smoothed his claws down the shaft, tripping over the barbs before he reached into Azram to grasp the root of the feather from where it anchored to his soul. He pulled it free.

The black blade glistened in his hand, the edge as jagged as cracked ice.

“Tsk. You can do better than that, pet.”

There was a clatter as the sword was tossed aside, and Lucifer’s hands found the feather’s neighbor.

By the end of the first wing, Azram had stopped moving entirely, submitting to the pain, the degradation, the growing number of missing feathers.

Then, Lucifer touched a shriveled wing on his right side, and Azram flinched.

The Devil chuckled and began again.

### 1474 BC

Another human was chosen by God and given a blessing that concerned Heaven so dearly that an Archangel would be sent to deal with them.

Azram was starting to wonder where, precisely, Tiamat and the Kingdom of Envy got their information. Were there spies on Earth who returned when they felt the overpowering presence of an Archangel? Or were they doing what he and Corvai had done in Babilla, exchanging tidbits of information with one another for their mutual benefit?

Lucifer’s orders were much more direct this time: keep himself hidden, gather what information he could, then bring it back to Hell so Lucifer could decide the correct course of action.

Nothing Lucifer asked of him was ever ‘pleasant’, but this came the closest. It was an achievable goal, modest, and required no greater judgement on his part. He blended in with the scenery: another sheep in another flock with another shepherd. Moses was neither the kindest nor cruelest he had ever met, but there was a tenderness in his eyes that reminded Azram instantly of Isaac trying to soothe a frightened sheep that would take his place as a sacrifice to his father’s God.

There was the familiar sense of gravity, the weight that warned of an Archangel’s presence, but Azram hadn’t seen any sign of them yet.

“Azram.”

The demon twitched at the sound of his name but maintained the dead-eyed stare of a prey animal that felt safe and content. Next to him lay a ribbon of darkness, the waves of his slither catching the light of the bright sun overhead, ever-so subtly golden.

“I know it’sss you.”

Azram’s ears flicked and he considered, briefly, the merits of remaining silent, if Corvai was smart enough to leave well enough alone, to pick up on the hint that Azram wanted nothing to do with him. He considered it, but his mouth moved before he’d reached a decision. “Why is it,” he asked in a low voice, “that everywhere I go, there you are?”

“Why are you here following Mosssess?”

There was a wary aggression to his voice, a note of warning that Azram refused to heed. Instead, he murmured, “You’re hissing, my dear fellow.”

“It comess with the territory!”

“Nonsense. I never heard another Seraph with a speech impediment.”

Corvai opened his mouth to say something, got halfway through a word, then fumbled for a moment before settling on a sulky hiss, tightly coiling. “It doesn’t matter,” he enunciated clearly.

Poking at the angel had been fun once upon a time, but now it felt… unpleasant. Despite his misgivings, Azram said, “Those big blessings your lot like to dole out to special humans — I get sent up here to see what they’re all about.”

Corvai’s head cocked. “You aren’t an operative on Earth?”

“I’m a busy demon,” he lied, trying not to wonder about Hell’s Earth operatives, how lucky they were to stand beneath an open sky, how they probably hated the game that Azram enjoyed playing.

They likely had no appreciation for an opponent worthy of their time, who made the game worth the participation.

“Sso what, you roam around Hell doing—?”

“Corvai,” Azram said with what little patience he yet possessed. “What I do in Hell is, frankly, none of your business.”

“Agree to dissagree.”

“Then you’ll tell me all about what you do down here as Heaven’s operative?”

“No.” A pause. Then, almost accusingly, “You saved Isaac.”

“Did I,” Azram mused, starting to walk away only for Corvai to slither after him, easily keeping pace.

“Heaven reported it as a big success, you know. Abraham, faithful, his son saved, and the ram that was sent by God.”

Azram snorted. “Does no one in Heaven know how to recognize a demon?”

“They do, but what story would you believe? A demon sacrificed themself on a pyre to God, or a sacrifice showed up miraculously before Abraham could use the sword?”

“I don’t believe stories,” he said flatly. “The ones telling them always have some ulterior motive.”

“That’s pessimissstic.”

“I’m a demon. I recognize a propaganda machine when I see one.” He lowered his head almost conspiratorially. “Everyone lies, angel. I suggest you get used to it.” He straightened up and began to bound away to rejoin the flock when Corvai spoke.

“Ram.”

And like that, he stopped dead in his tracks.

“What you did, for whatever reason you did it — it was good of you.”

Something in him longed to gnarl around the words, to pull them close and apart, to search for some deeper meaning, some form of forgiveness. Without looking back, he muttered, “And what you did was cowardly. You could have freed him. _You_ could have put an end to it. I made a mistake.” A huff. “Don’t worry, it won’t happen again.”

* * *

A lone sheep wandered off. The shepherd followed.

The Metatron’s voice shook the earth under Azram's hooves, and the Voice of God echoed over the valley.

The words, as they had when Cain and Abel gave their offerings, were lost on the likes of him.


	12. the archangels. (part three)

### 1455 BC

Egypt had turned into Hell on Earth.

The rivers ran red and stained the soil along the banks and further. It branched out into the groundwater and wells until one could track water’s movement entirely by the spread of crimson and the slow wither of plants. The taste of metal lingered in the air, overbearing. The buzz of flies and gnats and the incessant croaking of frogs was just as overwhelming until he thought he might go mad.

A soft voice, a confession in the midnight hours, “They’re going to destroy the livestock.”

A warning. If he remained where he was, he would be caught.

Azram couldn’t afford that.

Darkness stole over his animal form, and when his wings finished lifting, he appeared nearly human once again save for the horizontal slant of his pupils and the wings that he quickly tucked away. “Inconvenient.”

“Yeah?” Corvai demanded with a hiss. “_That’s_ what’s inconvenient?”

“Well,” Azram said with a frown. “Yes. It’s one of them.”

“Then fix it! Tell Ramses to let them go!”

Azram felt the tug on his lips, the crease of his brow, the perplexed look that he didn’t hide fast enough. It was easy to forget how ignorant Corvai was of Azram’s position both in general and specifically as Lucifer’s chosen agent. He never knew the stakes Azram was playing with which made him prone to ridiculous outbursts, insisting that he rebel and disobey orders. After all, Corvai reasoned, he couldn’t Fall a second time.

“Why don’t you do it?” Azram asked.

Corvai bared his fangs. “You _know why_—”

Coldly, “No, my dear. I’m terribly afraid that I don’t.”

“Heaven has a plan! I can’t interfere.”

“Can’t?” Azram prodded. “Or won’t?”

He saw the flicker of hurt behind Corvai’s eyes. The angel was terrible at hiding how he felt; his open heart was readily on display. Azram had cut him deeper than he could have with any physical weapon. 

Still. The utter and shameless hypocrisy wheedled under Azram’s skin. “Mercy and compassion but only for those we deem worthy. Such an interesting party line, angel.”

A bitter chuckle. “You think the Egyptians deserve it? They’ve _enslaved_—”

Azram _snarled_. “Do _not_.”

Corvai startled, golden eyes wide. “Excuse me?”

“Abraham had a slave with whom he had a son before Isaac. Yet Michael gave him a flaming sword, gave him God’s _favor_.” He sneered. “Heaven doesn’t care about what people do so long as it’s done by the ‘right’ people for the ‘right’ reasons. The rest of us are ‘evil’.”

“God gave Abraham favor because of his faith in Them.”

“Well, then.” Azram forced a smile. “Who has greater faith than _you_? Would you not be rewarded for acting on that faith?”

Corvai’s flinch tore at the aching hole in Azram’s chest. Even as he pushed, he didn’t want Corvai to listen to him, to tempt Their mercurial whims, to Fall.

As much as Azram despised Heaven and its arbitrary rules and endless hypocrisy, he knew too much of Hell. He didn’t want to think of what would become of gentle Corvai if he had to survive it.

Azram rolled his shoulders, looking away from Corvai to glance out at the flock that he’d abandoned. Most of them would be dead by this time tomorrow, but what kind of life were they living now? The plagues had affected them as well, left them skittish and afraid. “There are innocents on both sides. The average Egyptian can do nothing, yet they suffer for their Pharaoh’s arrogance.”

“They could stand up to him.”

Azram gave a bitter laugh of his own. “To what end, Corvai? To be enslaved themselves? To be executed?”

“To do the right thing.”

Azram chanced a look towards the sky, the endless stars. They spun and blurred in his eyes, overwhelming and dizzying as his eyes lost their focus. The relentless thrum of his frantic thoughts dulled to a low hum, and his hold on the anchor to this point in time, this moment, this conversation began to slip. “You don’t know the cost of the ‘right’ thing, angel,” he murmured, sinking deeper into himself as if he could use this to cushion the cruelty of the world, to keep it all at bay.

“And you do?”

It was better this way. Corvai didn’t need to know all of his specific sins. To be a demon was one thing but to have his failures spelled out for Corvai was an unbearable thought. He could be kept at a careful and measured distance. “Of course not, dear. After all, I am a demon.”

He was aware enough to register the look that crossed Corvai’s face, wary and uncertain. Disbelieving.

Good.

It was better if Corvai knew him to be a liar, if he knew that Azram couldn’t be trusted. It was better, though Azram couldn’t say for who.

* * *

The steps to the palace ran red from the rain overhead. Hail fell from the sky, leaving bruises and cuts on those who dared to venture outside. There was a great shock of thunder that shook the foundations of the pyramids, the palace — everything that had been built by this kingdom that would eventually return to dust.

The Pharaoh’s dark skin was covered in welts and boils, and he looked upon Azram’s clean form with furious Envy, an instant and unbearable hatred.

Azram didn’t flinch. He had his own orders.

“How are you untouched?”

“My Lord provides for me safety and protection.”

A sneer. “Another ‘prophet’ of the Hebrew God?”

“No.” Azram took a step forward. The guards lurched forward on all sides to stop him, grab him, subdue him, and with a single blink, they crumbled to the floor in a deep and uninterrupted slumber. In the next flash of lightning, Azram’s wings unfolded, stretching living shadows along the stone floor. As the thunder boomed overhead, he brought the full force of his demonic power into the palace, causing the torches and sconces to flicker low. Horns, eyes, ears, teeth, claws — there was no need to hide what he was, no need to hold himself back.

“The God brought to you by Moses is the enemy of my master.”

The Pharaoh’s face was ashen, and his hands curled on the arms of his throne. Fear rolled off of him in waves, and Azram could almost feel the prayers that gathered on Ramses’s tongue, begging for salvation.

“You serve Khnum.”

A too-sharp smile, too many jagged edges. He spoke in a soothing lull, underscored by the sudden, heavy roll of thunder. “No,” he said, prowling forward with lazy steps, watching as the Pharaoh stiffened. “But rest easy, my dear — my Lord does not ask for your loyalty, your _faith_. Your gods may keep you. All he asks is for your strength against our shared enemy.”

Ramses shook his head. “I have sent my—” _‘Brother’_, he did not say. He remembered himself too quickly for the word to escape, though Azram heard it woven in the straining fabric of the Pharaoh’s heart. “I have sent Moses from the city to pray for Egypt’s release. I will free his people. Our crops, our livestock — a famine is inevitable if we cannot broker peace with his God.”

Azram took a shaky breath. Typical of Lucifer to give him these orders when the Pharaoh had already surrendered, had already agreed to free the slaves.

Typical of Lucifer to send him to steal their freedom again, to demand that he drag others to the chains he could never shed.

Azram approached the Pharaoh’s dais. “How terribly unwise.”

“A famine could cripple my empire or destroy it,” he said tightly.

Another smile, all teeth, as forced as the words that he had been given. “You assume your empire will live to see the famine.”

He snapped his fingers and there was suddenly _fire_. Every piece of hail caught flame, crashing with a new weight into the buildings below.

Azram reached out with his power, finding the warmth of Ramses’s weakness. It was the love for his people, for Moses, for Egypt herself, his fear, his concern, all sensible things for a ruler to have. Azram pulled it from the Pharaoh’s heart, unraveling the rich tapestry and leaving behind the barest thread of his humanity. His frightened heart calmed, cooled, hardened against the cries of his own subjects, against his own fear, against the love he had for anyone other than himself.

Ramses’s eyes were empty as they stared up at him, through him, and Azram could feel them even after he disappeared from the palace.

* * *

The darkness was stifling, suffocating, pressing in from all sides. His demonic vision cut through the endless night, but he could feel it weighing on him, unbearably near. The memories of the dark crawled up his spine, dug into the thousands of years he’d put between himself and who he’d been in the cell, searching, carving, prying for some forgotten kernel of fear.

He hadn’t felt fear in so long that he wasn’t sure if he could.

Corvai stood at the weathered door to a ramshackle building, weariness etched into the lines of his face. When he heard steps, he lifted his head, looking, unseeing, through the dark. His throat bobbed with a thick swallow, and behind him, the shadows of his wings rustled.

“Corvai,” he murmured.

“Don’t.” Azram was taken aback, but it wasn’t entirely unexpected. “I don’t want to see you.”

A technicality. As gently as he was able, “You can’t see me. Can you?”

Corvai’s muscles twitched, body jumping with the urge to lunge forward, to make him _answer_. “No. S’pose I _can’t_.” Yet he stared unblinking into the dark, daring Azram to show himself, to test the angel’s tenuous restraint. He gave a dry laugh. “See no evil, eh?”

“I suppose so.”

A pause, considering, but Corvai never could stop asking questions. “Why? Why didn’t you let this— _all of this_ end?”

The irony was bitter on his tongue. “Hell has a plan. It, unfortunately, involves me.”

Another blessed hesitation. Strings of Corvai’s dark hair coiled around his face as it tipped forward, as his shoulders slumped, as he forgot that Azram was not as blind as he. “Just the job, then?”

He was searching, reaching out with something like kindness as if offering. Azram thought to reach back, to meet him in the middle, but the gulf between them was too great. “My job is who I am, angel.” Maybe Heaven had changed since he’d been a lonely guard at an unmade gate. Maybe it never had been like that for Corvai. Maybe Corvai _couldn’t_ understand. “There’s nothing else.”

“That’s not true.” He said it with such _conviction_, with a bright-eyed eagerness. Corvai raised his head again, golden eyes gleaming as he peered into the shadows. His thin shoulders pulled back, wings rustling where they spread on another plane, beckoning, and Azram’s tongue pressed to the back of his teeth with forsaken, terrible _want_ to feel the feathers under his hands. He wondered how Corvai would twist and writhe, how he would _tremble_. “Ram…”

So earnest, so soft, so _weak_.

“You haven’t attacked me.”

Azram’s chest squeezed around the heavy thump of his heart, trying to silence the noise lest Corvai overhear.

“I wouldn’t see it coming. I wouldn’t be able to stop you. Score one for the Legion, easily.” A certain nervousness, a worry stole over his face, but Corvai didn’t flinch, didn’t flee, didn’t hide. “But you’re still here.” A slight, hesitant smile cracked his lips. “S’that the job?”

“What if it is?” It wasn’t. They both knew full well that it wasn’t. By asking in the first place, Azram had all-but confirmed it. “What then, angel?”

Corvai’s hand curled around the doorframe. His knuckles turned white, and the wood creaked. “Then I can’t.”

The omission was too obvious, begging to be pressed, dug into. Can’t _what_? But Azram knew the answer already. They couldn’t play pretend, couldn’t act as though they were anything other than eternal, immortal enemies. They couldn’t anyway, not without the veil of darkness that kept Corvai from seeing him, that allowed him to imagine Azram softer than he was.

It was better this way.

Yet, he couldn’t resist the urge to wheedle just a bit. Softly, he purred, “Well, then. If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

The anger that flashed across Corvai’s face was terribly subdued.

Azram vanished before Corvai could say another word.

* * *

The duties given to operatives on Earth came with a host of unfortunate but necessary evils. 

First, there was the paperwork which had, admittedly, gotten easier. Azram had been able to convince Hell — with much theatrical wailing and gnashing of teeth on their part — to switch to papyrus rather than clay or stone tablets for ease of use. After all, the longer a demon spent getting their paperwork in order, the longer they were not operating in their official capacity as the downfall of humanity and the saboteurs of the Heavenly Host. 

Then, there were the oral reports, most often given to those higher up in the chain of command. For most operatives, this meant standing in front of a Marquis or a Duke (depending on their own rank) and explaining their nefarious plots before answering a seemingly-endless number of inane questions asked by someone who didn’t understand the nuances of working on Earth in the least. For Azram, it meant standing before Lucifer whose questions were rarely inane and rather more pointed. Of course, that was assuming he asked questions at all and didn’t spend their time together consuming him in one way or another.

Lastly, there was receiving orders. In the spaces between reports, information changed hands, plans had to be adjusted. Most often, this meant that a demon popped up into the temporary life Azram had made for himself to deliver what was usually bad news.

So it wasn’t _really_ a surprise when he walked into his rooms to find a sizable bird perched on a windowsill, acting as though he wasn’t terribly out of place.

“Barbus,” he said, unable to keep the annoyance out of his voice.

Azram had a theory that had been forming since the third time Atrox or Barbus had been sent to give him orders. It was a solid hypothesis with an unfortunate dearth of measures to test it. He could ask Lucifer if it was intentional, if he had purposefully chosen those two demons to deliver news to Azram, but there were too many other conversations in the way. First, there was admitting a significance to his relationship with the Barbus and Atrox which he had thus far avoided. Second, there was confessing that he had kept that information from Lucifer knowingly for the past three-thousand years. And, finally, there was accusing Lucifer of being passive aggressive which would only end in bloodshed or worse.

It was better not to know though he wondered often if the other two demons were aware of it as well.

Barbus cocked his head, white and black feathers ruffling. Azram rolled his eyes. “We’re alone.” Not that it _mattered_ if they weren’t. Altering human memories wasn’t a difficult task by any means. “So hurry up and spit it out.”

Barbus’s white eyes narrowed as he shifted on his perch. “Another plague is coming.”

Azram sighed, “Of course it is. What’s this one going to look like?”

“Death.” The word shivered down Azram’s spine, coldly factual, infinite and unavoidable for all mortal things. “He will walk through Egypt and take the firstborn of all men and beasts.”

“And what am I meant to do about that?”

Barbus extended a wing, nipping at a feather with his beak, hiding his mouth as he spoke: “Stop him.”

Azram gave a tight smile. “I see. By whose orders?”

He’d been expecting another bout of sabotage. Whoever was ordering him to fight with Samael wanted him dead, and he couldn’t wait to give them up to—

“Our Lord Satan, the Morningstar, the Devil.”

Azram’s smile remained in place. He had spent millenia hiding his emotions, and no amount of shock was going to startle his mask off of him completely. “I see.”

He turned from Barbus to his desk, hoping the other demon would take the dismissal for what it was, but he heard soft steps approach him, heard that familiar voice. “What are you going to do?”

His throat closed around the words, but he forced them out: “I suppose I’ll be meeting with Samael.” A light, insincere laugh. “To _stop_ him.” He turned a bright smile to Barbus in his human form. “Should be entertaining for you.”

He startled. “Me?”

“You and Atrox, Furtur and Zepar, all the demons who hate me.”

Barbus watched him warily. Good. Let him be afraid. Let him realize, now, that Azram had nothing to lose. “Cherub,” Barbus ventured, his voice so nearly soft, and the rest of the words choked around the tight press of Azram’s fingers as he dug them into Barbus’s neck, claws piercing into his flesh.

“Hold onto that thought, dear. Wait until I’m _yours_ again, until I can’t possibly stop you.”

“Ghg,” Barbus groaned, his sclera turning red as feathers began to unfurl from his skin.

“Until then, I suggest you keep your _lovely_ platitudes where I won’t hear them.”

Rather than release him, Azram turned, flinging him across the room. Barbus transformed in midair, his large wings flaring as he stared at Azram. Azram gave him a slow, menacing smile. “Be seeing you.”

* * *

Stop Death.

Lucifer might as well have asked him to overthrow Heaven for all that he could possibly do.

Azram could withstand Archangels, but Samael was a law of the universe, and his work was impossible to put an end to. Even immortals could be destroyed, and when they were, Samael would be there to ferry the fragile material of their souls on to whatever came next. Not an afterlife, not a reincarnation, but no one had ever told him. Granted, no one expected an angel, Fallen or not, to die. Not yet, not until the Great War, much to his dismay.

Unlike the others he’d run into on Earth, Samael wouldn’t give off an overwhelming sense of power. Even in the midst of the world’s greatest tragedies, he was to pass unseen, to do his work without notice. For all that Azram knew, Samael could already _be_ on Earth, unfolded at his fullest, ready for the next plague.

Infuriating.

It was purely selfish to seek Corvai out, to look upon him one last time. The options and outcomes were so few, and most of them pointed towards a future where Azram wasn’t running around on Earth, performing temptations and living among the humans. Either Lucifer intended for Samael to destroy him or he intended for Azram to be so weakened that he couldn’t possibly leave Hell until Lucifer deigned to give him a body and even the most minute taste of infernal power again. Lucifer surely didn’t expect Azram to succeed. If he managed, it would be in spite of the Devil’s plans, not because of them.

Perhaps, he mused, Corvai would simply discorporate him on his own. Sending Azram back to Hell might be a mercy at this point, even if Lucifer would be enraged that Azram had avoided his intended punishment.

But the angel didn’t notice him. Instead, he flitted among the crowd of Hebrews, handing out branches of hyssop. The people dipped them in basins of blood and painted the doorframes to their homes. Corvai looked frazzled, overwhelmed, and too busy for Azram to interrupt quietly.

Azram had never claimed selflessness among his virtues. In fact, as time had gone on, he had stopped claiming any virtues at all as he found it to be quite unbecoming of a demon.

“Corvai,” Azram murmured, willing the word to reach him over the hubbub of the crowd.

The angel paused and shifted the weight of his body to face Azram. Then, he stopped himself, turning his head purposefully away, sending a silent signal that Azram was to go as Corvai continued chattering eagerly to the people around him.

A rueful smile twisted on his lips, and he turned his attention to the nearest human instead.

“Dear,” he puttered, “I’m afraid I can’t get anyone to tell me what’s going on.”

She explained the way one might to an elderly relative, detailed and slow and so, so kind.

She explained, and Azram saw a loophole.

* * *

The shutters were drawn and the doors were closed. A lone figure moved through the empty streets as the sky cracked open, as Samael’s angelic form began to seep out of Heaven and onto Earth. 

Blood dripped down Azram’s limbs, stained his pale clothes, yet he remained upright, swaying to the next unmarked home with a branch of hyssop hanging from his cold fingers. It took an extra miracle to make his blood turn red, to match what had been placed there hours ago by a community while he was but one demon struggling to save—

Not out of _kindness_, nothing so inappropriate. It was for himself.

If it was anything else, he would have made sure it was seen.

At the next home, he opened another deep cut on his thigh and took his blood, painting the doorframe as his head spun. The pain was nothing, really, and it wasn’t as though he hadn’t bled out before.

“Exsanguination,” he murmured to himself, enjoying the taste, the shape of it even as the hyssop tumbled from his fingers.

There were so many more. He _couldn’t_ stop.

YOU.

Only, it didn’t sound like the word ‘you’. It sounded like words cascading over each other, ghostly whispers in a hundred voices that formed the idea of him rather than a concrete turn of phrase. _Azram angel of Pride of the Eastern Gate Fallen Abel Godfather of Murder demon pet of the Morning Azirapha—_

Azram forced a smile, answered weakly. “Samael. Lovely to see you, dear boy.”

The light before him writhed and slowly wove into the shape of a cloaked figure with wings that could stretch around the entirety of the Earth. WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

“Interfering.” A heavy breath, a slight laugh, a light-headed confession. “I hope. Is it working?”

SOMEWHAT. Samael paused, turning his faceless head, surveying the doors, the blood. Azram could feel him pushing at the power on them, searching for the ones Azram had painted himself without luck. Tendrils of his body snaked away through the air, and Azram could see periodic flashes of light, stolen life, last breaths racing towards the center of the angel of Death. WHY THE EGYPTIAN SLAVES?

“Convenience,” he lied easily. “Their homes blend in with those of Israel. If I painted the palace, I’m fairly sure you would have figured it out.”

SPEAKING OF… More of the dead gathered, and Azram watched with blurring eyes, marveling as the lights changed places, indistinguishable from one another, all identical and all equally dead. YOU WILL DIE SOON.

“I suppose my body will,” he said, leaning to pick up the hyssop and stumbling to the next house. Already, he bared his claws, ready to open another vein. “Will I make it to dawn?”

AT THIS RATE, NO.

He shuddered against the next door, beaming. “Good.”

Samael ferried the souls from life to death regardless of the life they’d led and regardless of where they would end up in the afterlife. He was the sole celestial agent that operated equally for all sides. Perhaps that was why, despite being an angel in name, he didn’t follow along the street Azram had been working on until the demon fell against a wall, sinking down to the ground.

IT’S STRANGE FOR A DEMON TO EMBODY MERCY.

“Mm,” Azram gave a lazy hum, tilting his head so that he could see the eastern horizon which was still, thankfully, dark. “I ‘embody’ nothing.” A dry laugh squeezed out of his lungs. “If I did, it would be ruined.”

IF YOU SAY SO.

Azram leaned his head back, feeling the exhaustion that settled deep in his bones, the slow slip of consciousness from between his fingers. He had never really felt tired. Not like this. Sleep sounded marvelous even here among the dirt and dust. He would close his eyes for only a moment, then he’d get back up.

He would. He had more work to do. He just needed to close his eyes.

* * *

He woke slowly, eyelids heavy, body thrumming lazily. There was an almost-pleasant ache that weighed on every muscle, clinging to every thought until he was struggling to stay conscious, to think. He _had_ a body which was surprising though he couldn’t quite remember why. He was so deeply comfortable that moving, opening his eyes, becoming aware seemed too great a chore to tackle. Instead, he tipped his head back, careful of his horns as he rubbed them against the bed.

A sudden, silky, molten heat sent a shockwave down his body, arousal thrumming sluggishly just under his skin. Azram hummed, smiling at the familiar curve of the mouth pressed into his neck. It moved slowly, unhurried and unhindered, a tongue mapped his skin. There was a scrape of fangs, and Azram’s dick throbbed at the promise, at the host of memories, at the heady concoction of Lust and Sloth that had him pliant beneath Lucifer’s merciless attention.

“Clever. Very clever,” Lucifer hissed, pushing forward, and Azram became aware that he was already split open wide on the Devil’s cock.

Azram arched with a wet gasp, a practiced ‘Thank you’ falling from his lips.

If he was lucky — and he wasn’t, generally, but maybe this time, _maybe_ — Lucifer might let him black out again.

* * *

Azram had, technically, succeeded.

Lucifer didn’t care much for technicalities. The rules he put in place were tools, reasons to dole out punishment for failure rather than rewarding for success. No one approached him to ask for favors. Even when the Kings were in conflict, they merely presented their cases in the most flattering light that they could before letting him, unhindered and unchallenged, decide what happened next.

Azram was more familiar with Lucifer’s methods of ruling than anyone else. He knew that the rules Lucifer played by were purely for his own benefit as opposed to creating structure.

He knew.

Azram also knew that, for whatever reason, Lucifer allowed him more leeway than any other demon. It often came at a terrible cost: pain, degradation, violation, and worse. It was a miserable reality, and eternity stretched before him, uncompromising and bleak.

The terrible truth was that Lucifer would do as he liked to Azram. He would create petty breaches of etiquette, endlessly moving his expectations so they could never truly be understood. He would give Azram impossible rules merely to watch him fail. Often, Lucifer offered no justification, no reasoning. Azram took it.

If he was going to experience the worst of the Devil anyway, why shouldn’t he try to get something out of it for himself?

What was, really, the worst that could happen?

“I want to return to Earth,” bled into Lucifer’s mouth, Azram’s own ravaged lips tingling as he gave up the words.

“When have I ever cared about what you want, pet?”

His hands shoved Lucifer down on his bed, and Azram climbed on top of him, eyes sparking with a facsimile of desire, electricity crackling down his spine, across his hands as they touched the familiar body beneath him. “Never,” he admitted. “But I want, just the same.”

Lucifer gave him a sharp grin full of fangs, a warning. “You’re playing a dangerous game.”

The same calculated risk as always, a final push. “Would you have me any other way?”

Lucifer’s grin ticked wider, and in the blink of an eye, he had reversed their positions, lithe body pressing Azram to the bed, hellfire kindling in his eyes as scales dug into Azram’s scarred flesh. “Not yet.”


	13. the archangels. (part four)

### 605 BC

Azram learned to walk along the razor’s edge. He lived on Earth, enjoyed a nominally human life. Orders came, and when they did, he obeyed. When they didn’t, he found ways to keep himself busy, always eager to have something to turn in before anyone got the idea that he was simply enjoying a vacation from Hell.

He was, of course, but they didn’t need to know that. They didn’t need to know the overwhelming sense of relief that came with stepping out of the crowded halls, with leaving the endless power grabs and games played in the courtroom. Azram was careful not to get too comfortable, too complacent. He never allowed himself to forget that all of this was temporary. Eventually, the leash Lucifer held would tighten. He would drag Azram back, would take what he liked, and if Lucifer released him again, it would only be to enjoy doing it all again.

Lucifer made it easy to remember.

With enough time, his brand healed. Every time it faded too much for Lucifer’s liking, he would heal it the rest of the way and would then press it into Azram’s skin again, carving and burning familiar scars into new flesh between his shoulder blades, visible even when his wings were out.

Azram could feel it perpetually tightening in the center of his back, a constant reminder of what he was and who he belonged to.

It was a small price to pay, all things considered.

“Did you know Raphael?”

It wasn’t often that Lucifer questioned who he had been before the Garden, before he had been his, but the Archangels were a particular sore spot. After all, Lucifer had once been one of them. He had been God’s Light.

Azram stretched, a temptation and an offering. “I knew no one before you, Morningstar.”

Hands settled on his hips, pulling him closer with a quick yank. Lucifer’s sweet laugh crawled along the nape of his neck. “Not like that.”

A palm slid up his thigh, fingers digging into the soft, delicate flesh until Azram forced his legs wider. “No. I never needed to see the Healer.” He paused, considering, and confessed. “Not until I had Fallen.”

The hand left his leg, and Azram’s breath caught in his throat as Lucifer held his right wing, all gentle hands even as he traveled along the withered, shriveled muscles and brittle, often broken feathers. “Do you think he’d heal you?” He pressed his cruel grin to Azram’s skin. “_Fix_ you?”

“No.” Azram turned his head, looking at the pale hand where it lay against his dark feathers. Lucifer’s jagged scales grew along his knuckles and wrist, a threat of violence. “If you wanted it healed, you would have done it yourself.”

Lucifer dug his fangs into the meat of Azram’s shoulder with a sated groan. Azram tilted his head away, offering himself up for the taking.

Resisting was a game he didn’t feel like playing.

* * *

Four powerfully-blessed boys had been brought to Babylon. They were prisoners of the empire, among the first of their people to be brought, to be conquered in a new arena. Humans had come up with assimilation on their own, the hatred of those who were different, the desire to break them and reshape them into something familiar, something they considered tolerable.

Humans had come up with it on their own, but Azram was well aware that Heaven and Hell had perfected the art form before Earth had been more than an impending collision in the expanse of space.

They were brought through a jeering crowd, led towards the expansive palace that would serve as their prison. Azram watched with silent interest, feeling the Pride carried by the crowd, each person built up by their fellows, by the triumph of the Empire, by the continued aggression towards their chosen victims.

It felt so terribly familiar.

The Babylonians continued their merciless merriment even after the prisoners disappeared inside. Azram edged away from the thick of the crowd, away from the power of the blessing only to feel something _follow_ him.

Azram briefly considered the benefits of flying away or expending a miracle to teleport from whatever celestial entity was hunting him down but ultimately continued walking at a leisurely pace, acting as though he hadn’t noticed. Instead, he meandered, waiting for pursuer to tire of the game, to force a confrontation. The shadows of a day nearing its end swallowed him as he wove between buildings and down winding streets. He even stopped a time or two, admiring carvings and adornments in the buildings, giving the other celestial entity every opportunity to catch him by surprise.

Then, the feeling disappeared.

Azram spared a casual glance down the road behind him to find it unmoving, still and empty.

* * *

The statue had nothing to do with him.

Azram took credit for it when asked. Why, yes, of course, he tempted King Nebuchadnezzar to build a false idol, to demand worship for himself. Of course, Azram had laid a trap for three of the blessed Israelites. Of course, he intended to oversee their execution, even if it meant allowing them to become martyrs. The Babylonians wouldn’t be moved by their deaths. Three for Heaven but an entire empire for Hell. Those were wonderful results by anyone’s measure.

When they survived, when the humans exclaimed that there had been a fourth body standing among the flames, a pit opened in Azram’s stomach.

When Azram pried open the executioner’s mind in search of the memory, he saw the silhouette of a willowy figure standing several heads above the tallest of the boys. He saw a spread of wings, gathering them close, feathers burning black then healing as white as they’d ever been in a nearly-hypnotic display.

When Lucifer took the memory from Azram and displayed it for the entire Court to see, Azram omitted one last detail, obscuring it in the depths of a wayward thought, a habit, safely tucked away as something ignorable.

He didn’t let them see the golden eyes that stared straight into him.

### 596 BC

An order was bitten into his skin, seared there, forming a second brand.

“Do not fail again.”

The mark sat like a weight over his body’s useless heart, aching with every thump, a constant reminder that he was on borrowed time. He was here by the grace of the Devil, hanging by a gossamer thread that threatened, every moment, to snap. With enough time, his body would forget it, would heal, and the best he could hope for was that when it did, Lucifer might not care enough to put it back.

In idle moments, Azram’s attention wandered, feeling the shape of the words in celestial script, the threat, the promise that lingered. He let them ground him, let them save him from the thoughts that plagued him. When he grew too restless, he let his claws open the wound again, let the flame burn anew. He needed the reminder, the warning.

If this was how he could remember, if this was what would keep him on track, he would use it.

The divine madness placed inside Nebuchadnezzar stifled his mind, suffocated higher thought until he roved through his rooms like a man possessed. Lucifer’s words bled on Azram’s skin as he presented himself before the wise men of the city as a healer. When a skeptical eye found the patch of black seeping through his clothes, Azram smiled gently. “The price of my power,” he explained, and it wasn’t quite a lie.

They brought the maddened king before him, bound in leather and rope like a violent animal hauled in for slaughter. He snarled at Azram, all teeth and spit, staring through eyes that lacked the light of intelligence.

“Leave me.”

“No,” one of the officials said, and Azram turned that smile of his towards them, carrying power and an unspoken threat, a warning.

“Let’s be reasonable, my dear fellow. We both want him healed. I cannot perform my magic in your presence. The arithmetic is really _very_ simple, wouldn’t you agree?”

“And if you kill him?”

“Why, then, kill _me_.” Patronizing in his agitation, “Couldn’t you come up with that on your own? How _have_ you ruled in his absence?”

Oh, but the official didn’t like that. Azram struggled to care about the man’s fragile pride, but with Nebuchadnezzar so close, Azram could feel the strength of the divine power radiating off of him. It would take most of his energy to dispel it and the rest to keep them from being noticed by whoever had stolen the king’s mind in the first place.

“Go,” he pressed, putting infernal force behind his words, letting them sink in, ideas hooked like claws into the meat of the humans’ thoughts: this was desperate, this was their only option, he was no threat, _have faith_.

The official sneered even as he stood. “If anything happens, _anything_, I will devise the worst death you can imagine.”

Azram struggled not to laugh in his face, but his lips twitched into a smile regardless. “Well, then. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

The moment they were alone, Azram locked the doors and barred the entryways with infernal power, determined to keep himself and the king alone for as long as he could. He turned his attention to the snarling man before him. Broken, robbed of his humanity, all to prove a point; Azram’s smile fell away. He spared a quick snap, covering the king’s naked form with something other than bindings. Then, Azram reached out, running his fingers through the thick, unruly mane of Nebuchadnezzar’s hair, pulling him up on his knees as a great multitude of eyes opened on Azram’s body.

A harsh, nearly-blinding light overtook them immediately. Azram took a deep breath and forced himself not to blink, adjusting quickly to the divine radiance as he had for several thousand years. He dispensed with the extra effort it took to maintain his pupils, allowing them to turn into rectangles in all of his eyes as he forced the lingering power into a shape he could understand.

The light pulled inward, forming a in inverse crown that dug into Nebuchadnezzar’s head. The elaborate diadem glittered and gleamed, and the ornamentation swept low along his brow. The worst offenders were two twisting spires that hung in front of his face, carrying such great and heavy jewels that the king’s eyes were completely hidden. 

Azram’s hands shook with the effort of holding the divine power in this form, sweat dripping a cool line down to his jaw. He brought his trembling fingers to the crown, letting the angelic power burn him.

Miracles created by powerful celestial beings required an immense amount of power to rewrite.

If Azram needed to, he could.

The crown dislodged under his touch, shards of divinity cutting into his fingers and palms as it struggled to hold its form. Azram snarled, desperately wrangling with the malleable energy until it, at last, began to spin too quickly, too harshly, dissipating into thin air.

Nebuchadnezzar slumped forward on the ground as much as his bindings would allow.

Azram snapped his fingers, releasing the mortal bindings with a surge of power that startled the king. He stared up at Azram, eyes wild and body shaking as he attempted to scramble away.

Azram was too tired for patience, too agitated to feign kindness, and he was well aware that whoever had put the blessed crown on Nebuchadnezzar would be back the moment they realized that someone had interfered with Heaven’s plan. “What do you remember?”

“I— I—” His mouth and mind hadn’t formed words for far too long.

It was cruel, but their time was short. Azram rested a hand on the king’s head, and he _took_.

Azram saw the dream: a tree that stretched higher than the tower of Babilla with branches that spread to the far horizons. Fruit hung from its endless branches, taken freely by man and beast alike and eaten as they were sheltered from the blistering sun, the howling wind, the cruelest tempests. He saw an angel in their true, unknowable form, heard a thousand whispers coalesce into a warning. The tree must be cut down. The king would be as a beast.

Azram saw the fevered waking, the frightful pacing around his bed. Azram saw Nebuchadnezzar call for magicians, diviners, and wise men in search of answers. 

Then, Azram saw Daniel. Beloved Daniel, revered Daniel, who held his captor’s shaking hands and declared that Nebuchadnezzar would lose his mind for seven years.

Azram saw the king wielding a weapon clumsily, surrounded by guards days later as Daniel walked through them again. He saw a bright smile brimming with kindness. Daniel’s eyes turned into the color of molten gold before his illusory form began to fracture, and then Azram saw nothing more until he saw himself.

Azram was gone from the palace before Nebuchadnezzar opened his eyes again.

### 587 BC

He kept the burns on his fingers as a reminder. The marks had been tender at first, like white-hot nails driven through the layers of his skin, but in time, they cooled and numbed, until he could no longer tell if he were touching water or iron or leather or brick. When he reported to Hell, he hid them in plain sight. He folded his hands as he usually did: behind him, in front of him, fingertips curled, pressing his own nails into the meat of his palm but failing, now, to feel the texture of his own skin.

Lucifer would heal him, if he knew. He would take offense to any trace of divinity — whether it was a blessing or punishment — that lingered on Azram’s body.

Nebuchadnezzar and his heir perished; the Empire changed hands.

King Darius hadn’t been brought low by an angel. He hadn’t awoken from a seven-year stupor, hadn’t been plagued with visions that foretold his own demise. There was Pride in him, as there was in all men who crowned themselves rulers, but it was not alone. Azram watched from his place as one of the Empire’s magicians as Darius embraced Daniel time and time again. His hands lingered with soft familiarity, lips searing affection into Daniel’s skin and receiving it in return.

In the other officials, there was a growing tidal wave of Envy, but before Azram stoked the flame, he ought to be certain.

Lucifer was devastatingly bright. His light scoured Azram clean, eyes lingering on the brand over his heart as Azram stood before his dais.

There was a harsh affection in Lucifer’s prying, in the way he pulled Azram closer wordlessly, looking, always, to sate whatever hunger plagued him at the time.

As above, Azram thought with a scoff, so below. The Envy of the Kings crashed against him, but he remained unmoved by the force of it. “An angel has been interfering in Babylon and hiding themselves for far too long,” he reported dutifully, his numbed fingers sliding along the harsh ridges of Lucifer’s scales, leaving trails of black blood behind. “I would bait them out or kill their human.”

“And what if they emerge?” Lucifer asked. The flames in his eyes sparked and flickered as he demanded, as he _pressed in_ and began to pull Azram apart. “What, then?”

“Whatever you want. Give me a sword, and I’ll send them back to Heaven for a new body.” He leaned closer, curls catching silky strands of Lucifer’s hair, his lips ghosting over the Devil’s. “Give me hellfire; I’ll give you a war.”

Lucifer wouldn’t. The assassination of an angel was too risky, especially one that had been interfering as this one had. This was someone with power and clout. This was someone whose loss would end the ceasefire. Lucifer wanted the War to return, but he wanted to _win_.

Azram offered precisely because Lucifer wouldn’t take it.

“So eager, pet,” Lucifer purred as heat flooded through him, as Lucifer reached through the scars to the aching center of his soul. “Kill him,” Lucifer breathed as he _squeezed_. Azram’s world narrowed to the claustrophobia, to the pain that would have brought him to his knees if Lucifer wasn’t forcing him to stay on his feet. He was a puppet, and his strings were taut enough to snap. “If the angel comes to his rescue, I want you to put the fear of _me_ into them.”

Azram nodded, breathing shallowly and arching into Lucifer’s touch, seeking some form of relief. “Yes, Morningstar.”

Lucifer gave him an indulgent smile. “Don’t you want to ask me _how_?”

“No,” he said, voice wavering as he struggled not to cry out. “I try not to ask unnecessary questions.”

Lucifer yanked him down until their bodies were flush, until he was breathing the air that struggled to process in Azram’s stuttering lungs. “If you forget, I’ll give you another reminder. And another, and another. I will _cover you_ with them until you remember.”

“Thank you,” he murmured, but Lucifer did not release him then or for hours more.

There was so much left to take until he was, for the moment, satisfied.

* * *

Azram taught the officials how to bait the trap for Daniel. With insistent flattery, they built Darius’s Pride to a tipping point, until it seemed natural to declare that no one in Babylon could worship anyone but him. The evidence was damning; Azram saw to it personally. He saw the hope die in Darius’s eyes when he realized the corner he’d trapped himself in. The newly-crowned King couldn’t afford to contradict himself. Daniel had to be executed.

Darius offered Daniel a chance to recant, to admit his mistake, to beg for forgiveness. Daniel, stone-faced and unrepentant, refused, with something that seemed like an apology.

Azram couldn’t blame him. He had once been so full of righteous faith. He had been blind until God Themself had forced his eyes open.

Daniel was a pawn in a game he couldn’t possibly comprehend, and it wasn’t his fault.

But Azram had his orders. The last time he’d walked away from an execution, the charges had lived. If Daniel’s guardian angel wanted to save him, they would have to meet the demon who had orchestrated it.

The pit was dark save for the dying light that filtered in through the barred windows. It caught in the gleaming eyes of the starving lions which slowly slunk from the shadows to inspect the newest addition to their cage.

Daniel held onto his composure as best he could. His hands twitched from the maws and bodies that touched them, struggling with the primal fear to shrink, to hide, to save himself. Sweat beaded on his brow as the last of the sunlight faded. He prayed in fevered murmurs, and Azram waited. He waited until the first lion sank its teeth into him. He waited as the first shriek tore itself from Daniel’s throat. Azram waited, perfectly cloaked, until the body stopped moving, until the light of life left Daniel’s eyes.

It was a hollow victory for the brief amount of time it lasted.

The familiar, overwhelming weight of an Archangel fell upon him in an instant. The world pitched desperately back, and Azram fell to the far side of Babylon. He smiled, deadened fingers scraping along the ground as he pulled himself forward, wings flaring and pushing him through a considerable pocket of space.

Azram slammed into the angels knitting Daniel’s body back together in a frenzy of black and white feathers. The Seraphim were healers and artists, not warriors, but they outnumbered him. They outnumbered him, _and_ they had a very pissed-off Archangel on their side.

Golden light consumed him, pushed into him, healed him. Azram felt the numbness fade from his fingers only for the sharp pain of the burns to return. The brands on his chest and back broke open and bled anew as if Lucifer had just carved them into him. Bruises bloomed on his skin, and lacerations burst open. Raphael shoved him away again and sent him reeling across the city.

The world went abruptly dark. Azram’s many eyes blinked open, and his grin widened when he couldn’t see a thing. Raphael wouldn’t hurt Azram himself, but he would make Azram’s body remember old injuries, would rewrite them as if he controlled time itself. Azram didn’t have to _see_ to know where the Archangel was. He flashed forward, colliding with another burst of power that healed his vision.

Raphael made an inhuman noise that shook the sky, and Azram’s right wing shattered outward, growing back to its full size and breaking again. For the first time, Azram struggled. The ground of the prison was harsh under his knees, his back arched in a futile attempt to push the pain away. This was worse. Azram’s form tried to correct itself again and again only for Raphael’s power to strip his wing down to its essence and reform it the way it had been in the beginning.

Angelic touch roved over him, cleansing and invasive.

“I’m sorry,” said a voice that felt like a home Azram no longer had.

For a moment, Azram could have sworn his feathers were white. Tears gathered in his eyes and dripped slowly down his cheeks. Raphael left him in terrible, overwhelming rapture even when he banished Azram to the southernmost point on the continent.

### 70 BC

The work never stopped. There was always some temptation he could perform for Hell, and there was always some form of Heavenly meddling that he could interfere with. 

He’d received a commendation for the day following Daniel’s execution, when Darius fed his saboteurs and the entirety of their families to the lions instead. Azram felt absolutely no need to tell anyone that he’d been temporarily relocated to the Malay Peninsula and incapacitated until well after the gruesome execution had run its course. It wasn’t his first, which he’d received for Cain after Belphegor had introduced the Court at large to commendations as a motivator for the average demon. Azram often thought Lucifer insisted on giving them to him precisely _because_ he was aware that it was a trick.

Regardless, he now had a small hoard of petty achievements that looked fantastic on paper but were, ultimately, pointless.

Azram _liked_ Alexandria despite himself. He tried not to, really, to protect himself from the disappointment that came when it returned to dust as all mortal things did.

But the moment he stepped into the Library, Azram’s defenses utterly shattered.

It was a massive collection of human work. There were so many scrolls that Azram could have dedicated a century towards reading and possibly not reached the end. There were an endless number of histories, names he recognized in stories entirely true, entirely fictional, and everywhere in between. There was poetry and records, insignificant parts of life that had been immortalized merely by writing them down.

Azram was enthralled.

He was reading an account of Aristotle’s ‘first philosophy’ when a scholar bumped into the table where he’d gathered a treasure trove of his own. It spoke volumes that Azram didn’t look up from the pile of assorted Socrates, Plato, Sappho, and Homer. He was, so often, a silent and ignored participant. He let the humans’ attentions slide off of him so they could happily argue with each other and leave him to reading. That was what he preferred.

So it was an utter and complete surprise when the scholar who’d run into him took _notice_.

She stopped walking. Then, slowly, she brought a second chair to the table beside him.

That was when Azram started, with great annoyance, to pay attention.

Which was when he realized that he was not the only celestial being in the city, much less the building.

“If you interrupt me, I’m going to be cross.”

Corvai smiled sharply, resting her chin on her hand. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” Her dark hair cascaded around her shoulders in waves and braids. “What are you doing here?”

“I believe it’s called ‘reading’.”

“Clearly.” With deliberate grace, she reached out for an untouched scroll, unrolling until she caught sight of the poetry within. “Oh, my. They send you up here to read this, eh?”

Azram indulged in the slight flush that crawled along her dark cheeks and the hungry way her golden eyes devoured the words within. “I could say the same thing about them sending you down here.” A slight smile: “A fan of Sappho, are we?”

“Is that who this is?” Corvai asked in a tight tone of badly-feigned ignorance. Azram’s smile widened, self-satisfied, and Corvai’s blush darkened before she rolled the scroll back up. “What are you doing here, Ram?”

Azram’s jaw twitched. His tongue tied itself into a knot trying to find how to cut out the unnecessary intimacy found in that nickname. Instead, he began, “I told you. I’m reading.”

“You _know_ what I mean.” Corvai leaned forward, her eyes holding onto him. As always, unblinking. As always, more intense than Azram was adequately prepared to deal with.

“I go where I’m told. This time, it was Alexandria.”

“And Hell told you to hide away in the Library,” she accused.

Corvai’s prodding was an unwanted irritation. “No. I’m to await further instructions.” He glanced briefly around them at the shelves and the people, taking in the atmosphere with a fondness in his expression. “I chose the Library.”

Corvai frowned. “So more demons will come.”

Azram shrugged. “It’s not as if the ground’s consecrated or angels are patrolling the perimeter.” Corvai glanced away, her lips curving into a slight frown as one finger curled around a braid of her hair and tugged. Azram’s smile widened. “Oh?”

“Sshut up,” she hissed, shoulders rising guiltily.

And, really, she knew better than that. There were few things in the world more tantalizing to Azram than Corvai all-but admitting that she’d made a mistake.

“Dear me, angel. Did I slither past you?”

A snap, her eyes bright and accusing, “Slither’s a good word for it.”

Easily, “You would know.”

An unspoken question hung heavily in the ensuing silence. Corvai could eject him from the Library, could devote herself to keeping him out. She ought to, really; it was her job.

Maybe she would, eventually.

But for now, she edged closer, looking at the scroll that sprawled in front of Azram, and read.

Most of their days were spent apart. They shared the building and the scrolls, occasionally passing one to the other, with notes written in a language no human could read. But rarely — oh, so rarely, but as often as they dared — they would sit near to each other, would carry meandering conversations that lasted for days at a time. Arguments and debates happened in bursts with plenty of downtime between. While in the Library, it was easy to feel as though they were hidden away from everyone else. That here, among the scent of paper and ink, they were safe.

In the end, Corvai never ejected him from the Library.

She shared it with him.

### 48 BC

The invasion wasn’t a surprise.

Both sides had been involved with Caesar, Cleopatra, and the Roman Senate, building the Roman Republic to a fever pitch until the fleet on the Mediterranean Sea seemed like an inevitability.

When Caesar ordered that his own ships be set ablaze to defend against the encroaching siege, Azram was there. He obeyed his orders, stoked Caesar’s Pride one last time before slipping out to get a better view of the carnage. When Lucifer ripped these memories out of his head, Azram wanted to give him a show.

The soldiers crowded on the docks and wharves, and the flames began to roar aboard the Roman and Egyptian vessels. Azram fanned them higher with a wave of his hand, imparting bitter memories of hellfire and pain until it was a proper inferno. After all, his powers had been given to him by the one who created the sun. It seemed logical that he could stoke a fire to its zenith.

When the buildings near the docks caught, Azram gave his sole order, an indulgence, a bit of selfishness: the flames weren’t to touch the Library or the buildings that housed the scrolls she couldn’t hold. Let them escape miraculously. Let the humans keep their stories, their collective memory. Let them keep the knowledge that had damned them in the first place.

In a way, Azram saw it as continuing the work Lucifer had begun in the Garden.

So when he heard someone exclaim that the Library had caught, Azram had _known_. It wasn’t his fire. It couldn’t be unless a stronger demon had convinced it to disobey him.

He didn’t have time to confirm his suspicions. An earthquake tremored through his body and deeper, bringing him almost to the ground. Azram struggled with bared teeth against an Archangel’s power. Unlike the others who had been a mere overwhelming presence, this was actively winding around him, dragging his limbs to a near-halt and singeing him for disobeying, for continuing to fight.

He was known. Even his dulled sense of self preservation knew that he should run before he was cast out or destroyed. It thrummed through his body, a facsimile of adrenaline, a dangerous warning. Yet, he forced his feet forward.

Perhaps, if it had not been the Library. Perhaps, if he was not feeling particularly stubborn. Perhaps there was a set of variables that would have kept him from interfering, but it wasn’t these. He lurched forward, building up speed until he rounded onto the correct street.

The Library burned from the inside. Flames danced in the windows, flickering ever brighter, and framed in the open doorway was Uriel.

“Demon,” she said curtly. Fire wrapped around her hands, winding up her arms, undulating as if alive. “Your interference stops now.”

With a brightly-sharp grin, he staggered forward. “Oh, I doubt it. The Flame has very little use for holy water. It goes against your whole…” Azram hissed through his teeth, considering, “…aesthetic, doesn’t it?”

Uriel did not delight in cruelty. She didn’t feign a smile, didn’t further taunt him. She merely struck out with a whip made of fire, tearing through the layers of flesh on his legs with a miracle that would take too much power to bother with healing.

He took another uneasy step forward, snarling.

She wouldn’t destroy him. She wouldn’t, even if assassinating a demon weren’t against the rules of the current truce.

And even if she did, would that really be the worst thing?

The next lash cut his shoulder to the bone.

He took another stumbling step forward.

“Well?” he asked, tone mild though his voice traitorously hitched.

The third time, Uriel’s whip wrapped around his neck rather than flaying him. She yanked him in one smooth movement past her and into the Library. He sprawled through a shelf of scrolls, rolling along the floor into more of Uriel’s divine flame. Azram gritted his teeth, accepting the burns on his hands as he forced himself to stand. Uriel watched him with the same impassive look, and it occurred to Azram, finally, that he couldn’t beat her.

The Judge, The Sword, The Flame — Sandalphon, Michael, and Uriel were the most powerful warriors in the Heavenly Host. In a fair fight — Hell, even in an unfair fight — he wasn’t going to measure up to any of them.

Azram summoned the power he had, gathering what precious few scrolls he could before he flashed out of the flame, appearing on the far side of the Mediterranean. His skin was black and red, cracked and burned horribly, divinity wheedling deeper.

Of all the things in the wretched world, he _wished_ for fury on his behalf, wished for kindness he hadn’t earned, wished for mercy he would always be denied. Wished, and knew, instantly, that Corvai wouldn’t appear out of thin air, wouldn’t come to save him.

He was _so far_ beyond saving.

When the darkness clouded his vision, he let it take him.

* * *

It took days for his body to recover, and, even then, it didn’t recover fully. The divine origin of his injuries as well as the severity allowed them to linger, and he was too tired to heal himself, too tired to crawl back to Hell and let Lucifer take him apart and rebuild him again.

Azram appeared to find the Library still smoldering. Smoke rose, thick and dark, from the building which had cracked and broken open. He found someone to hand the scrolls off to. He’d healed enough for humans not to question how he still lived. That was enough.

Limping, halting steps dragged him through the debris, through the futile attempts at recovery, through the _mourning_. Ash streaked his skin as he recovered memories, flashes of conversation.

Everything humans built would eventually return to dust, but this? This was more than he could bear.

“Why are you here,” that voice asked, cracking as divine tears rolled down her cheeks.

Azram spared a glance up towards Corvai who glared at him with a muted fury, her hands curled into fists at her side. Her hair was cut short to her head, and the ends were charred. The burns on her body spoke of futile heroism, of rushing in to save something from the tragedy.

“Because I am, angel.”

It was the wrong thing to say. They flickered out of sight together, to some far, nearly-empty room that might have been Corvai’s. She shoved him away, trembling from head to toe. Grief warped her Wrath, twisted until she was crying in anger, crying in sadness, her hands fisting in his clothes while she wept about everything the humans had lost. Recovering all of the lost knowledge would be impossible. Lives had been lost in the siege. She blamed him.

“Corvai,” he breathed, grabbing her thin wrists, feeling the furious flutter of her pulse. “Look at me.”

“I _am_,” she snarled.

“No.” Azram smiled, devoid of cruelty, horrendously injured, barely holding together. “Really look at me. Do I look like that was my doing?”

“You look,” Corvai hissed, “like a _liar_. You’re a demon. You’ve tempted me before; why would—” She laughed, broken, “Why would _this_ be any different?”

Bitterly, “Then send me back to where I belong.”

“No.”

That hurt worse than if she’d continued insulting him, than if she’d blamed him for all of this. He supposed, in a rather roundabout way, it was. Humans would be wiling away in the Garden, still, if he’d done his blessed job.

Perhaps all of this was his fault.

Corvai gave a very rare blink, and her eyes fell to the burn that wrapped around his throat. Softly, voice barely a whisper, she asked, “What happened?”

“Uriel.”

She believed him. Instantly. He almost wished she hadn’t.

“Heaven burned the Library.”

“And you?”

He blinked. “I’m afraid I was too late.”

She snarled in agitation, fists tightening in his clothes which made her realize how she was still holding him, how close they were. Abruptly, Corvai freed her hands and stepped away. “No, Ram. What— what happened to _you_?”

A slight, wounded laugh. “What do you think? A run-of-the-mill demon like me taking on an Archangel?” He straightened his clothes and used the time to close himself off, to mask the pain, to pull himself away from this unrelenting closeness. “I ran, Corvai.”

In a way, it was the truth, and that made it worse.

It made the flash of disappointment on her face unbearably real.

It was almost a relief that he could leave as easily and as quickly as he did.


	14. the star. (part one)

### 0 BC

There was an unidentifiable stir in the celestial makeup of the universe: a sudden splash in a still pond created rippling rings that grew to great, crashing waves, a veritable tsunami that flooded the entirety of creation. It was not rewriting but an addendum, a footnote, a late clarification to the existing text.

It took time to pinpoint the source. It took a hundred demons crawling around on Earth, searching, inelegantly triangulating. It took time even though the answer had been right in front of their faces all along.

It shone nightly, hanging in the sky: a star that disobeyed logic and reason.

The star had not been born in the cradle of a nebula. No gathering gas, no collapse of gravity; it had been created lovingly, brought forth from nothing but malleable dust. It had not needed Lucifer’s original spark to begin shining. It was an aberration. It was a miracle.

Oh, how his wings ached to fly to it, to look upon the one creation that had never been touched by Lucifer. He longed selfishly to pull it into himself and consume it before it could be stained and ruined. It would shine at the center of him, within the wheels, wings, and eyes, until its limited lifespan reached its end. Then, it would collapse in on itself and consume him in turn, pulling him apart in the infinite void of a black hole.

As it was, it was only a dream. He didn’t dare to leave Earth without permission. He could hardly stand to look at it for too long as if he might see the exact moment when it was no longer untouched and pure.

Instead, he delivered the report to Lucifer. Azram watched the impotent fury twist on his delicate features, felt the rage burn higher until it pierced through his own body, clawing at the ribs that dared to cage it. But try as he might, Lucifer’s anger could not change what had happened nor the fact that it had happened without him.

There was only so much satisfaction he could wring from torturing Azram, but, to Azram’s surprise, he chose to forgo the futile attempts entirely, seething orders. “Find the angel responsible,” he snarled. “Find out who ordered it. Find out _why_.”

“My Lord,” Azram deferred agreeably, trying not to seem too pleased.

It was the sort of assignment that could take centuries if one was unlucky.

For the first time in his expansive life, his luck — or lack of it — might work in his favor.

* * *

Earth was a _mess_.

In all fairness, it usually was. Free will was such a wonderful conduit for chaos. Humans resisted celestial attempts to nudge them onto a path that Heaven and Hell could easily understand. They would rather depose kings and topple empires rather than let themselves be led. As someone whose general business it was to tempt, nudge, and lead, it was _infuriating_. But Azram couldn’t help but admire humanity’s stubborn refusal to give in to powers much stronger than them.

The Roman census had caused quite the stir. Men roamed to the land of their forebears to answer and be counted. The shuffle gave Azram the chance to move as subtly as he dared, swept along from crowd to flock and onward, one face among many and hopefully completely uninteresting to the angels that swarmed Earth.

At first, Azram had thought that the angels had been dispatched as an answer to the demons who had been looking for the reason the celestial energy had shifted. It made sense: if Heaven had noticed the increased number of demons on Earth, they would naturally flaunt their own numbers in return. But as time wore on and as his travels brought him closer to where the star led, the more certain Azram became that Heaven had a purpose beyond intimidation.

It _had_ to be the humans. Whatever move Heaven intended to make was to show off for humanity. There was no reason to post a significant number of the Heavenly Host on Earth if they intended to move directly against Hell.

The star was the answer, but the nearer he got, the subtler he needed to be. He could feel angels all around, popping in and out from Heaven, preparing.

He ought to report in. He got so far as to drawing sigils and circles in the dirt, lighting infernal fires at the cardinal points, but before Azram could utter a single word of the incantation, it died on his tongue. He wasn’t in any danger. He hadn’t been _asked_ to determine what Heaven was up to.

Why stick his neck out and risk getting recalled? Why draw any attention to himself if he didn’t need to?

Azram smiled to himself and struck the ritual from the dust. A sweet threat dripped from his tongue, and the ground shivered and spontaneously upturned to erase any evidence that it had ever been touched.

* * *

Another shepherd, another flock, another knife cut into his right ear, carving off the silky tip and leaving another notch. Blood ran in a cool rivulet down the line of his face, staining his wool. The shepherd tried to clean him off, but Azram tossed his head, bit at fingers, and kicked out with his hooves until the human released him and allowed him to prance off to join the rest of the sheep.

There was comfort in a flock that he couldn’t find with humans. The utter lack of ulterior motives made it easy to sink into a state he couldn’t afford anywhere else. Every choice he made had subtle implications; every conversation was a dance where he only knew half the steps and needed to keep his eyes and ears open before the song changed again and he was expected to keep pace. There was none of that now.

The sun fell towards the western horizon, painting a vibrant sky as the first stars began to glint overhead. Azram tilted his head, eyeing the newest star. It glared, piercing through his pale eyes now as if offering divine condemnation for his prying. He swore it was getting brighter every night, calling out to him, beckoning. The shepherds murmured among themselves, glancing nervously towards the Heavenly addition to their night sky.

No subtlety, Azram thought. That was the problem with Heaven and Hell both. They were overly fond of great, grand gestures, screaming their chosen message straight into the masses and frightening the living daylights out of the mortals when a softer touch could achieve as much if not more.

He didn’t know the half of it and wouldn’t for hours more.

Azram froze mid-step at the sudden sensation of _choirs_ of angels converging in the deep, dark night sky. There were hundreds of them in the nearby area, glowing so brightly that it played the worst trick on his eyes. The world was bathed in harsh, divine light. The hills and plains stretched on and on, empty and wide and nearly white. The warm wind created by hundreds of beating wings kicked up the fog that spread along the ground on these earliest-summer nights, letting it roll across the grass and spiral towards the sky until it was hard to remember that he was not among the clouds, soaring of his own volition.

It looked terribly, wonderfully, achingly like Heaven before the Rebellion, before the War, before it had been organized and regimented.

As if the lot of them had merely shown up to prove Azram’s point, a voice _boomed_: “Don’t be afraid.”

Azram couldn’t speak for the humans, who were silent in either fear or awe or some mix of the two, but the sheep were _terrified_. The flock started to scatter, moving in a sudden, rapid thunder of hooves. He was dragged along, tripping over a sheep that fell beneath the sudden stampede. Then, with another burst of divinity, the fear dissipated, replaced with a forced calm. The animals were unaware that tonight was different from any other night. They could see the angels, but they felt nothing and thought nothing.

Azram, for a moment, envied them deeply, forced to act as though he was under the effects of a miracle in the vaguest hope that whoever had calmed the sheep hadn’t sensed a demon among them. If they did, they’d make an example out of him. They’d punish him before the Heavenly Host, and they’d ingratiate the shepherds by showing them what had hidden among their flocks. Lucifer would be furious, and the paperwork would be a headache.

He cast a glance upwards, searching the celestial beings above him for any sign that he’d been noticed, but he hadn’t been prepared for what looking upon the angels would do to him. Something in him _panged_, wrenching at his useless heart, and he couldn’t tear his eyes away. Why did it hurt? He’d known for four-thousand years that they’d forsaken him, that they’d given him up to Hell without a fight, yet seeing them made him feel as if the last several millennia hadn’t happened. Azram wanted to reach out, to cry, to pray, to _beg_ as if he hadn’t become a demon of his own volition, as if he hadn’t given up hope after only forty years.

He was silent despite the scream that ached in his chest. Azram’s breath shook, and he swallowed the empty words down. They weren’t going to listen. They weren’t going to save him.

The angel — Gabriel, Azram reminded himself; it _had_ to be Gabriel, no one else was this obsessed with the sound of their own voice — was still speaking, and Azram struggled to listen, to care about what was being said when the words fell away and the angels reminded all of creation why they had been grouped into choirs. The song fell around him, praise and promises driving into his chest like daggers. How dare the first warriors sing of peace. How dare they promise anything Good, as if Good hadn’t been made up simply to divide itself from Evil.

Azram’s knees quaked from the weight of it all, but he remained standing, refusing to give any part of Heaven the satisfaction of affecting him.

It was almost a relief when the last of the hymn was swallowed by silence and the ethereal light faded. The darkness of night settled again on the world below. Azram shuddered and dropped his head, stomaches churning to expel a poison that they couldn’t hope to purge. It ran too deeply within him, tainting the very fabric of his being. Anger seethed through him, warring with pain until the two reached an accord and began to thrum in discordant harmony.

He’d allowed himself to be distracted. He’d _missed_ what Gabriel had said. His best bet was to pull it from one of the shepherd’s heads and hope that the angels lingering on Earth wouldn’t notice the minor miracle.

Azram cast his awareness out, hoping to find that the nearest angel was miles off, but it ran into a wall merely steps away. He fought not to lift his head, to stare at the approaching enemy. The peaceable stillness of the evening carried lingering traces of divinity, a brisk chill and a sharp feeling on his tongue as if urging him to pray, to recant, to try again to reach Them after millennia of being ignored.

Sandaled feet stopped in the grass near him, and the angel took an unnecessary breath.

“S’pose you think you’re clever, don’t you? Hiding in plain sight of half the damn Host.”

Azram lifted his head slowly, still uncertain as to whether he should continue playing the role of a simple animal. The Corvai he had known for several thousand years had always been a lone operative in a hostile world. This time, there had been other angels. There had been an _Archangel_, for Satan’s sake. He didn’t know who Corvai would be when surrounded by others on Heaven’s side.

Corvai wore angelic robes of purest white. Their hair fell in a wild tangle around their shoulders, catching light from the stars and moon, shielding their golden eyes from such material beams. Then, they _smiled_. They smiled as if they had seen Azram in the Library after he had spent days reporting to Lucifer. They smiled as if they intended to take the seat across from him, to tease him about the scrolls he’d pulled off the shelves. Corvai smiled at Azram as if they’d been waiting to see him again.

It was rather overwhelming, and Azram didn’t quite know what to say. He gave them a dismissive ‘baa’ before turning to walk away.

Corvai’s smile infected their voice, warm, fond, elated. “_Azram_,” they said. “I know it’s you, you absolute bastard.”

Azram’s ears flicked, and he turned his head. For a moment, he met Corvai’s eyes, and he saw that bright smile waver, saw the exact nanosecond when Corvai realized that they weren’t supposed to want Azram here. Whatever the angels had been here to announce — it involved him, and they were, again, on opposing sides.

Corvai’s eyes jittered over his face, and when they spoke, they were so, _so_ quiet: “You _can’t_.”

Oh, but they were always so open, so _thoughtless_ with the information they gave away. With those two words, Azram knew that whatever it was, it was infinitely precious to Corvai. It went beyond duty, beyond the job they were assigned. This was personal. It was something they kept cradled in the soft, open warmth of their heart. They lifted a hand, curling it in the fabric over their chest, seeking something to hold onto.

“Can’t what?” Azram prodded, still refusing to turn the rest of his body to face them.

“‘m not playing this game with you.” Their wounded expression hardened, and Azram could feel them gathering divine power. “Jusst—” Their jaw clenched, biting their tongue to suppress the hiss. “Just,” they repeated more carefully, “leave.”

“I can’t do that, angel.” He tilted his head, lifting his marked ear. “I go where my shepherd leads.”

Their brow knit, gaze still searching his until they finally caught sight of the blood and followed it up to the source. Their eyes widened, and Azram fought not to laugh at the _worry_ that flashed across their face. “You— you can’t,” Corvai repeated with much less intensity. “They’ll be going to Bethlehem soon. Can’t bring a bunch of sheep along to a crowded city.”

“Of course not, my dear. However, only the one? I’m sure they can manage.”

“There’s no _room_.”

“If that’s the worry, I promise I don’t take up too much space. One could say I practically disappear.”

The irritation on Corvai’s face was almost worth the smiting Azram would get if he didn’t ease off soon. “S’not my main concern, is it?”

“No?” He turned and approached softly, tilting his head up to look at Corvai. The willowy angel glared but made no immediate move to get rid of him. “What _are_ you worried about, then?” Azram turned his head, indicating the sweep of the sky above them. “_They_ wanted the attention. Surely they knew Hell would find out eventually.” Corvai’s lips trembled, but they swallowed around their words before they could properly form. “Really, if anything, this is Gabriel’s fault.” Corvai flinched at Gabriel’s name, eyes flicking briefly up before they fell back to Azram. “An Archangel not noticing a demon? He really ought to be written up.”

Corvai’s lips trembled again, though this time they were fighting to keep the corners from quirking up in a knowing smirk. “You should get on that.”

“_Me_?” He feigned offense, drawing his front hooves together as he turned his head away from Corvai, drawn up into a prim pout. “It’s hardly my division.” A put-upon huff. “Angels, honestly. It’s a wonder Sloth is a _sin_.”

Corvai almost smiled, but they only got so far as the corners of their eyes crinkling before the mirth fell away, replaced by the same gravity that had been there before. The hand that had taken to resting on their chest fell back to their side, restlessly clutching at the fabric of their robe. Solemnly, they spoke, “You can’t be here, Ram.”

“But I am.”

“But you could be somewhere else. _Anywhere_ else, actually.”

Azram’s posture loosened, and he aimed a sorrowful look up towards the angel. “I have my orders. Though, it might please you to learn that I’m gathering intelligence at the moment.” Corvai gave a rare blink but said nothing. Azram pressed, “I’m not here to interfere.”

Cautiously, “But if you could, you would.”

Amused, he murmured. “Oh, no, I’m afraid I wouldn’t. I received a rather sharp reprimand for not waiting for orders, and I’d like to get back in Hell’s good graces before I tempt them again.”

Corvai glanced up towards the sky, less furtive than before, their sharp face angled towards the star that shone like a beacon above the City of David. When they next spoke, the words were deliberate and calm with a note of tension beneath the sibilant hiss: “You _promise_?”

Azram’s ears twitched, and he was thankful that his facial expressions didn’t translate to his current form. In the long history of their acquaintance, Corvai had never indicated that they would consider using a demonic contract. “My,” he murmured, “you are serious.”

Corvai nodded. “Could say that, yeah.”

He wanted to say yes. He very much did, but it would be insulting to them both to bite without demanding proper bait. “What do I get out of it?”

Corvai inhaled through their teeth then clicked their tongue. “I’ll answer any three questions you want me to.”

“_Any_?”

Quickly, they closed up a hole. “No do-overs. You ask me something I know nothing about, you get nothing.”

“My word.” And, oh, this was unwise, but when would the chance to form a contract with an angel come up again? It was too enticing, and Corvai knew it, bless them. He purred, “We have a deal?”

Corvai smirked. “Deal.”

There was a subtle tug between them, a grounding line of power that tethered them to one another. A divine promise and an infernal contract met in the middle and tied a knot that neither could break.

“What do you want to know?”

“Oh, angel.” Azram smiled with sharp teeth that did not belong in any sheep’s mouth. “I’ll ask them when I’m ready.” There was something so gratifying about the way Corvai’s eyes widened, the way their face fell slightly with worry before they managed to smooth it over and hide the concern. Wheedling, Azram murmured, “You need to work on sewing up those loopholes.”

Corvai smirked down at him, and Azram pawed at the ground with a hoof, tilting his head, trying to figure out what the angel found so amusing. “Never said how long you’d have to stay out of it.”

A slight concession. “So you didn’t.” Then, slyly, “I never said you set the time limit.”

Corvai’s face wrinkled. “Then what did I get out of all of this?”

“Nothing, ideally.” Corvai squawked, ready to argue, but Azram cut him off. “But I’m a demon of my word. I won’t interfere.” He lifted his eyes, watching as the shepherds began to walk away from their flocks towards the city, having left a few younger, Envious humans in their wake. “Suppose I’ll be finding out what the fuss is all about soon enough.” He cocked his head up at Corvai. “Stay out of trouble.”

Corvai, despite themself, chuckled. “Should I say the same to you?”

Almost pityingly, “You should save your prayers for something that has a chance of being answered, dear one.”

“S’pose I should.”

Azram left unhindered, and he felt Corvai disappear behind him.

* * *

Bethlehem _was_ crowded. People had come to report for the census, and they were crammed into every building. The overflow spilled out into the streets, and in doorways, in stables, there were more humans, restlessly turning as they tried to sleep. Quiet conversation echoed down the streets, filling the air between buildings with dull but ceaseless noise. Azram noted that the angelic display outside must not have reached the city; he couldn’t imagine all the humans being so peaceable if they had seen so many angels.

The star was positioned just overhead, unmoving and brighter, at the moment, than any celestial body but the moon.

Azram followed the shepherds down winding streets, trying not to succumb to the agitation that coupled with anticipation. Soon. Soon, he would have some answers even if they weren’t the answers he was meant to be looking for. It gave him something to report in which would surely appease Lucifer for a time.

Azram felt a sudden sting behind his eyes, pressure caused by divine power. The blessing plucked at his curiosity. It was _powerful_ though Azram couldn’t quite understand the shape of it, the intention. It went beyond the average blessing — safe travels, long life, bountiful harvests, and so on — and in the infinite vastness of possibility, the nature of the blessing evaded him.

Though he wanted to follow the shepherds to the end, he couldn’t resist. Azram’s hooves struck the ground as he bounded towards a stable that looked like any other he’d passed that night. There were people, exhausted and haggard from the journey, from the bureaucracy that Caesar had forced into their lives, from a series of nights spent in sleeping arrangements much like these. They sprawled among the hay and bags of food. But unlike every other stable, not a one was asleep.

All focus was drawn to a couple who clutched one another, weeping with joy near a trough. Azram’s nose twitched as he slunk past the gate into the stable, taking in the earthy scent of the stable, the salt of sweat, the metallic undertones of blood. He’d not been present for many human births over the years, but it was not too dissimilar from when he’d witnessed lambs being born in the fields.

Yet, something felt awry. Beneath the strange circumstances and the obvious Heavenly tampering, there was something wrong. It wasn’t until he heard a faint rustle through the hay that he realized: it was utterly silent. Azram looked at the humans — at the mother and father — who were caught in one another’s arms, and he wondered where on Earth was the baby.

Azram felt the brush of scales over his ankle, but he didn’t move.

“Ram,” Corvai hissed from the floor.

“The child,” he breathed, careful not to phrase it as a question.

“He’s sleeping.”

“He,” Azram stepped gingerly over the black snake at his hooves and snorted with frustration when Corvai wrapped their tail around one of his ankles to hold him in place. Reluctantly, he admitted, “It’s so quiet.”

“They’ve been through it just to get here,” Corvai said gently. “Joseph and Mary made it to the city in time for her to go into labor. S’been a long day.”

“Don’t the newborns usually cry—?” Then, realizing his mistake, he blessed under his breath. “Not how I wanted to waste one of my questions.”

“Hey,” Corvai said gently, butting his head into Azram’s leg. “Knew what you meant. You’ll ask ‘em when you’re ready, eh?”

“How terribly generous,” he muttered, tearing his eyes away from the manger and the parents in order to search for a spot to stand that wasn’t quite so obviously out of place.

When Azram began to walk towards an unoccupied edge of the stable, Corvai released him, slithering along at his side. “None of that. You uphold your end, and I’ll do mine. Like we agreed.”

It still felt acutely like a trap. “You want me to avoid interfering.”

“With him,” Corvai said. “With his parents.”

“For the duration of their lives.”

Corvai hesitated, and Azram glanced down at them. “No,” they said finally, peering up with their golden eyes. Their tongue flickered almost lazily out and back in before they concluded: “A few decades.”

Azram thought to ask why, but it seemed obvious. The blessing, the angelic spectacle, and the star all made it blindingly obvious that Heaven had a plan. “You could demand I leave him alone forever, you know.”

Another hesitation, then a soft confession: “I know.”

Azram slowly lowered himself to lay on the hay. He bent his legs back, knees taking the brunt of his weight as he settled his body down. One of his back legs tucked itself under himself while the other sprawled out and forward. He gave a shake of his head, ears flopping and a shiver running down through his wool. The descent gave him time to think, to wonder.

Heaven had a plan, and Hell was a part of it.

Slowly, the mother released her husband, reaching into the manger to pull out a swaddled child. He sleepily blinked his eyes open, his face wrinkling with a frown before he gave a toothless yawn as his mother cradled him close. “Is there something wrong with him?”

“What?” Corvai asked, sounding almost offended. “No. Course not.”

“He’s so quiet.”

“He doesn’t cry.” The angel slithered before him, coiling near his body. “No need to. Safest a human’s ever been.”

“Well,” Azram murmured. “Since Eden.”

“Clearly wasn’t _that_ safe. Since the serpent got in.”

Azram’s ears flicked again, not in response but picking up the sound of steps approaching. Almost lazily, he uncurled a leg, laying it alongside Corvai as he dipped his head down and covered the angel.

“What,” Corvai hissed, and Azram swore he could feel the touch of their tongue, “are you doing?”

With a tone that passed for lightly conversational, he explained. “That’ll be the shepherds.” Azram watched keenly as they opened the gate, filing in with looks of astonishment and awe. “If they see a snake in the stable, they’ll take your head off.”

“Ngk.” It was less a word and more of a distressed noise Corvai made in their throat. Then, after a moment of consideration, almost _accusingly_, they said, “They shouldn’t see me.”

“Mm, true. But they’ve also been blessed with the sight of more angels tonight than the rest of humanity’s seen in millennia. Thought it best to err on the side of caution.”

“Why?”

A chuckle, warm breath caressing the smooth scales near his mouth. “Believe it or not, angel, I don’t want to see you beheaded. Isn’t that enough?”

He felt Corvai move, and Azram waited with bated breath, half-expecting to be bitten for his trouble, but they only shifted closer, nosing curiously at Azram’s wool. That time, Azram definitely felt the quick slither-strike of their tongue, and Corvai, alarmed, muttered, “You’re bleeding.”

Azram’s marked ear swiveled, and he could feel another drop of blood wetting the tract that should have dried. “The wound reopens easily at first.”

“What happened?”

“Humans,” Azram said, glancing at the shepherds as they crowded around the manger. One of them spoke in a hushed voice, telling the exhausted humans what they’d witnessed out in the fields. His hands moved as he spoke, his body as involved in the process of storytelling as his lips. Azram explained: “Shepherds need to mark their sheep in case flocks mix, in case of thieves, in case we wander off. They pick a side, they carve some notches in a certain pattern, and everyone knows who we belong to.”

Corvai’s voice was soft. “Doesn’t it hurt?”

Azram tilted his head until he could look down at them with one pale eye. “Dear one, I’m a demon. I’ve had worse than this from walking through the halls of Hell.”

There was the low drag of a displeased hiss but Corvai quickly stifled the noise. In doing so, they turned their head, burying it in Azram’s thick wool. Realizing what had happened, they inched backwards, bent stiffly and glaring upward at Azram with slitted pupils. The soft light caught on their scales, glimmering with every minute movement. “You should heal it.”

“Why? This way none of them will get ideas.”

“You’re in the city! Just look like a human.”

A low, teasing drawl, “But I’m so much warmer like _this_, angel.”

“Ssstubborn,” Corvai accused seconds before Azram felt his wool tug. There was a flex of a strong muscle against his skin, the drag of scales through the tangle of his wool. Azram froze, but rather than constricting, squeezing, crushing Azram beneath the weight of them, Corvai lay loosely wrapped around Azram’s neck. “Hate to admit it, but you’re right. Much warmer.”

Azram shook his head, letting it shake down his body until he settled again.

At the trough, Mary began to hum a lullaby, her voice raspy and out of tune and beautiful. The baby gurgled, and Corvai nudged their head under Azram’s head, nose trailing along the soft, sensitive skin until Azram was certain that Corvai must be able to feel the thrum of his false pulse. They breathed into his skin. “His name’s s’posed to be Jesus.”

* * *

In the crowded streets of Bethlehem, two human-shaped beings could be easily lost among the shuffling crowds. Dressed in plain clothes, the demon and angel hid in plain sight. They walked at a careful distance, out of step, out of sync, weaving towards the same destination without being obviously tethered to one another.

As Azram shouldered through a crowd, he allowed himself the indulgence of looking to his right. Corvai moved with an undeniable grace, swaying in an effortless dance with the bodies around them. The sunlight caught in the waves of their rich earth-dark hair, catching on veins of copper that were woven through the thick of it. Strands of orange and red tinted subtly, and Azram almost couldn’t drag his eyes away.

They arrived at a city square separately but together, meandering closer in slow increments. Their shoulders collided with a jolt that felt almost electric. Tingles raced down Azram’s arm until his fingers curled, resisting the urge to reach out for the one who stood so near to him that an occasional breath or shift might bring them to touch again. Words passed between them in tones of voice that might be mistaken for talking to oneself.

It was as much as Azram dared to do in the light of day.


	15. the star. (part two)

The star was a beacon in the midst of a dark night. Visitors ambled in and out of the busy city, following word of mouth, the whispering rumors of the Heaven-sent child of a virgin mother. The more Azram heard the story, the more agitated he became, but the questions he wanted to ask were all questions Corvai could easily put behind the gate of their agreement, demanding that Azram burn one of his three queries to receive an answer.

The truest pity was that Azram already knew what the questions needed to be. They were salvation and safety, a fulfillment of his duty. First: who had created the star? Second: by whose orders had it been done? Lastly: why? It was easy to surmise that Jesus was the _reason_, but the angels had appeared in vast numbers to the lowly shepherds. What purpose could the star possibly serve when the messengers could and would deliver a much less cryptic message to humanity whenever it suited them?

Azram knew what he needed to ask, but he held his tongue partly to see if Corvai would give information on their own, if it could be wheedled out of a wine-loosened tongue or from an outburst after petty gaming. Honestly, truthfully, the largest part was that he wasn’t prepared for what would inevitably follow. Once he had his answers, he would need to make the long trek back to the courtroom, stand before the Morningstar, and deliver news that would only make him angry. Azram was quite used to Lucifer’s anger, to feeling the brunt of his Wrath beating against him again and again endlessly. Azram was used to it, but he wished to delay the inevitable return to torment. Whatever survival instincts he yet possessed were pitiable and weak, but they couldn’t be eliminated entirely. Surely, they would have gone by now, if they could.

So the star remained, enigmatic and bright, watching over him as he made his return through the darkened streets, slipping into his animal form mid-step as if he’d shrugged off a piece of clothing.

Corvai lounged, looking human and tired. They cracked a single eye open as the lone sheep wandered to their side, flopping down near them.

Many of the inhabitants of the stable had moved on. They’d found people to stay with, rooms that could hold a stray person or two more, but as blessed as Mary, Joseph, and their son supposedly were, they had yet to find room for three.

“Anything?”

“I’m afraid not. Something’s filling up the rooms as soon as they come open.” Azram had his suspicions about that, but the accusations would go nowhere. Either Corvai knew Heaven wanted the family to stay in the stables and had invented the errand of checking for empty rooms to keep Azram busy, or they would take offense at the notion that Heaven enjoyed the idea of its child being so exposed to the elements, sleeping in the open air.

They’d come to an unsteady peace, and the last thing Azram wanted was to shatter it so soon, though he knew that he would eventually. He always would.

“Nothing here, either. A few more visitors.”

A curiosity gnawed at him, a question, and he dared to ask: “Any demons?”

He became aware of the force between them, the almost-painful presence that dragged him imperceptibly closer to the angel and bound them together. “Want to ask again?” Corvai asked sourly, unaware that they’d given the answer easily and freely.

If there had been demons, Corvai would have wondered at Azram’s involvement the moment he asked about them. They felt safe enough to skirt and play — there were no other demons in Bethlehem. At least, not so far as the angel knew.

“No, I don’t believe I will.”

The tether between them eased its tension, fading to a mere ghost of a reminder in an instant. If Azram focused, he could feel his end of it, stray threads woven into the material of his celestial being, firm and unyielding, unable to be frayed or torn. It could dissolve, but that power lay in a mutual agreement, and Corvai wouldn’t absolve him of his contract before they were ready.

It chafed if he thought about it too much, but Azram was used to feeling confined, bound, trapped. It reminded him of home, really.

* * *

The days stretched, yawning into weeks. A complacent contentment threatened Azram’s peace of mind, knowing that the more comfortable he became, the closer he was to losing it in a sudden and violent upheaval. It was hard in those long, languorous days to think about the inevitable loss, to dwell on the end that was surely coming when there was so much in front of him. But it wasn’t impossible. When his thoughts wandered, he often found them straying to the flames engulfing the Library, in Babilla crashing to the ground, and in the flood destroying every last trace of the first humans.

There was a soft noise, a gurgle as Jesus reached for his mother’s hair, winding dark curls around his small fist.

Corvai watched the family with an open fondness, the sharp lines of their face softened with seemingly-infinite love.

When would it run dry? It had to — of that, Azram was certain. There would be a point where Corvai’s heart would harden. They would turn their face away, and terrible, inevitable fate would rip Joseph, Mary, and Jesus apart with Heaven’s blessing.

“What’s gotten into you, hm?” Azram asked one lazy evening just as the star began to gleam, sprawled comfortably out on a stool, a mug of wine on the table between them.

Corvai had been… twitchy. It wasn’t odd, truthfully — their shoulders and hips had a tendency to sway, and Azram couldn’t remember a time the angel had been utterly still unless they were _furious_. But this was different. Their head lifted, tracking the crowds with particular interest. Tension twisted through their shoulders, drawing them back stiffly.

“S’nothing,” Corvai muttered entirely unconvincingly, fingers tapping along the table, flitting near his own mug, going so far as to take the cup in hand before leaving it behind again.

“You know. If I didn’t know you better, I’d think this was a trap.”

That got their attention. Corvai’s eyes snapped to Azram’s face, brow pinched with a frown. “It’s not.”

Azram knew, but he couldn’t resist the urge to wheedle. He cocked his head just so, observing Corvai coolly. “You are in such a state. One must wonder…”

“Oh, _must_ ‘one’?” Corvai snapped, face flushing darker as Azram’s smile ticked wider. Agitated, their fingers clicked across the tabletop again. “You _know_ about Jesus, now, but you’re still hanging around. Why?”

“Forgive me for not wanting to return to Hell so soon.” He folded his hands around his mug, tipping his chin down to look at the wine. “Besides,” he glanced up through his eyelashes, feeling a familiar surge of something he didn’t dare to name rolling off the angel in waves. “It’s not as though I have the full picture, is it?”

Corvai smiled sharply, leaning forward with that familiar shift of their spine that reminded Azram of a lion slinking closer to its prey. “Ask me for it, then.”

“You _are_ impatient,” Azram said, smirking. “So eager to have your end of our bargain over so soon.” A gentle reminder, “It was _your_ idea, angel. Having some buyer’s remorse, are we?”

“Nah. Not yet.” With their arms propping them up on the table, they picked up their drink, watching Azram over the rim of their mug. “Give it time.”

“How much?”

There was a tug on the tie between them, a teasing pull. “Ask me again.”

Azram laughed softly, smiling. “No, my dear. I don’t think you know the answer.”

* * *

He should really sober up, but there was something to be said about drunkenness, about the way it clouded his concerns, stunted his better judgement. It was a dangerous indulgence, a taste of sweet poison. Corvai stumbled on the path they walked together, the delicate balance of their saunter pitching them almost to the ground. Their hands met his and clung too tightly, a clumsy smile spreading on their lips as Azram pulled them close and refused to let go even as the world stopped its mad spin.

“Y’r eyes,” Corvai said with a pleasant breathlessness. “Pupils are all… sideways.”

Azram closed his eyes to try and force them back into circles, but Corvai tugged him closer. “No, no, Ram, stop— Don’t get to see ‘em that way often.”

Reluctantly, he opened his eyes again, taking in the bright gold of Corvai’s own eyes, the way Corvai _lit up_ when they saw that he’d left his pupils in their natural state. If he reached out, Azram might be able to touch their halo, might burn himself on their divinity, then.

When he looked for it, his eyes snagged on the waves of Corvai’s hair, and it felt fair to let them know that he had noticed. “When’d you put red in your hair?”

“I _didn’t_!” They said with an affronted gasp. “S’always been there!”

“Liar.”

“Am _not_.” Then, hopefully, “It’s just— hard to see in the dark.”

Now that he thought about it, he’d rarely met Corvai in broad daylight. Shadowy walkways, indoors, in the dead of night, sure, but beneath a bright and open sky?

There was a reason for that, but he was trying so very hard not to think about it. It was so much safer here, bathed in the light of the stars and moon instead of the harsh burn of the sun. The alcoholic haze began to dissipate even as Azram willed it to stay, clinging to this moment. There were so few that he truly enjoyed. Need he lose it so soon? “Ram?”

He trailed his thumb over their delicate knuckles, feeling the softness of their skin. His stomach wrenched into a knot.

“Ram,” Corvai repeated, this time angrier, more pointed. “You still haven’t healed your ear.”

Azram’s tongue tripped over itself as he went to remind them for the upteenth time that it was _fine_. One of Corvai’s hands slipped free of his own, hesitant fingers trailing over the shell of his human-shaped ear. They mapped the jagged hole on the end, the notches further down the side. The world felt suddenly, terribly unsteady. “You do it,” he breathed, daring, wondering what it would feel like when it was Corvai’s power. Not an Archangel, not the Devil, but a quite ordinary angel who— Who might _like_ him the way no other being alive did.

“I can’t,” Corvai said sadly, taking the lobe of Azram’s ear in the curl between their thumb and forefinger, stroking so gently.

“Seraphim are _healers_,” Azram reminded them, wanting— He had never learned to stop wanting.

“I—” They started then stopped, swallowing the aborted words. Their hands fell away as Corvai took a step back. They pulled their arms around themself, folding into a mockery of an embrace, face tilted down, eyes avoiding Azram’s now. “Not all of us. Not me.”

And Azram remembered a conversation he’d quite forgotten, overheard while sitting at his master’s feet thousands of years ago.

“Corvai?” The angel refused to look at him until he asked: “Who made the star above Bethlehem?”

Their jaw twitched, tightened, and their eyes flicked to his. When they spoke, it was soft, hesitant, with a note of something that sounded like hope. “Ask me again?”

He didn’t need to, now. He knew the answer. It had to be— The contract pulled between them, and he stepped closer to ease the tension. He could feel the heat coming off of Corvai’s corporation, could feel the thrum of life under their skin as he slid a hand over their arm. Hesitantly searching, he murmured: “Who made the star to lead people here?”

The starlight shone in Corvai’s eyes, and the answer compelled itself out of them, falling like benediction from their lips. “I did.”

Of course they had. Of _course_. The beautiful beacon hung above them now, out of Lucifer’s reach, untainted and pure, watched over by its loving creator.

“It is marvelous, you know.”

“Is it?” Corvai asked, their voice tight. “S’just a star. Bunch of elements thrown together. Nothing special.”

“Nothing?” Azram said. “Hurtling through space at the right speed lightyears away so that it stays above the City of David? I certainly couldn’t do that.”

“No?” So soft, so warm, so awfully tempting. “You ever tried?”

He had never learned to stop wanting, and he wanted, now. He wanted to light the sky ablaze, to fill the night until it was as bright as the day, claiming it for himself. He wanted, and Azram was suddenly afraid that he _could_. After all, his powers had been given to him by the one who had created Light.

“No,” he said and drew back to himself, clasping his hands at the small of his back as the alcohol and excuses evaporated from his tongue. “I don’t believe I should.”

He tried so very hard not to read into their disappointed flinch as Corvai sobered themself up.

* * *

It wasn’t the first time Jesus cried. He had been almost a week old before the weight of living in a strange, new world had hit him, and he’d started wailing and fussing long into the night. Azram remembered it fondly, though not for the reasons Corvai had ascribed to him later. He didn’t delight in children crying, in the ferocity of existential unease. But it had felt astonishingly, wonderfully _normal_. For the first time in his young life, Jesus’s humanity had beaten the heavy weight of the blessing that had been wrapped around him from the moment Gabriel put him in Mary’s womb.

Azram tried not to think about _that_ more than he had to. His scant memories of Gabriel were not fond — most of his memories of Heaven and its inhabitants weren’t — and Corvai’s complaints across several millennia made it clear that the Messenger hadn’t gotten any less overbearing with time.

Jesus wept with hunger and exhaustion, and Azram watched passively from a sheep pen, wondering where on Earth Corvai had gotten off to. It felt as though the angel should appear, to bless the boy with sweet dreams and a feeling of warmth that would carry him through the rest of the night. Corvai had _such_ a fondness for the child, but tonight, they’d sent Azram back to the stable alone.

There was the soft creak of a gate, and Jesus wailed all the louder.

The girl was a thin slip of a child, all bones and chilling angles. The last vestiges of youthful roundness clung valiantly to her. She was alone save for a scrappy dog that cowered by her ankles. No parents, no siblings, no guardian — she wasn’t the first, but the tragedy had buried itself so deeply in her heart that it was an irreplaceable part of her, an undeniable truth. Azram was all-too familiar with words that became a concrete definition. Details would be blurred and lost, and they would each be remembered by their respective circumstances and never anything more. He was a demon, and she was an orphan. The world continued to turn.

She slunk to an unoccupied section of the stable, pulling her clothes around her and huddling with her precious few belongings. Her dog lay at her feet, wet nose pressed to her skin with a suppressed, weak whine.

Azram huffed and contemplated reaching out for the angel, but with Corvai’s increased state of agitation, he thought it best to keep his head down in case they were meeting with other angels. The last thing he personally needed was to be shuffled back off to Hell with only one of Lucifer’s demands answered.

Carefully, he herded his thoughts from the inevitable. He would do his duty, would eventually tell Lucifer that Corvai was the star-spinner who had disobeyed his archaic law. What would happen, then? Corvai was an angel, hopefully out of reach but never quite far enough. Retribution — Lucifer would want it, but how far would he be willing to go?

Corvai ought to know, ought to be ready.

They really ought to smite Azram before saying another word to him, but they’d come too far. Azram could provoke them, but a fate worse than death awaited him if he intentionally failed.

Just as Joseph got Jesus to calm, there was another squeak of the gate, and Azram lifted his head, watching as three men dressed in ornate robes and gold and smelling of a thick and heady perfume stepped into the humble stable.

One of them wore a crown amid his silvering curls, and Pride grew its twisted roots deeply in all three of them.

Behind the crowds of servants and attendants to the kings, Corvai slid free, wincing as the self-important humans began to talk, laying gifts and offerings at the feet of the baffled family whose young son began to tear up again.

“Rather rude of them,” Azram noted as Corvai slid into the pen, watching through the slats. Candlelight fell through them, casting bars of shadow across Corvai’s gentle face.

“Needed to be done.”

“By whose orders?”

“Does it matter?”

It was a rarity these days for Corvai to lose their patience so quickly, and it was a much less coy method of demanding that Azram burn one of his remaining questions to have it answered. But they were irritated.

“Is this not what you’ve been waiting for?”

A sneer. “Maybe,” they said in a way that was an obvious ‘yes’.

“Wouldn’t think you’d be so upset about it.”

Corvai rolled their eyes. “If this is the bit where you go on and on about your _humble_ opinion on Heaven’s plans, can we _please_ skip it tonight?”

Azram observed the raw, unprotected nerves the angel was failing to hide. He huffed. “There’s no point in arguing with you about it, anyway. Any discrepancies you chalk up to ineffability. It doesn’t _have_ to make sense. Do you have any idea how annoying that is? I can hardly tempt you properly.”

“Not supposed to be tempting angels anyway,” Corvai groused, shoving a foot weakly against Azram’s plush side, still avoiding the obvious point that something was wrong.

Irritating. “How does the girl figure into this?”

“The girl?” Corvai asked in the scant seconds before Jesus began to cry anew, writhing in his bundle of threadbare blankets. The dog had gotten up and curled tightly against the child’s side, but as the baby cried, the girl sat up. The heartbroken look that crossed Corvai’s face told Azram more than he’d ever need to know about the girl herself. “She’s still a kid.”

There was a point to be made about the cruel realities of ineffability and the utter lack of accountability, but Azram was silent, propping his chin on the middle slat, peering through the gap. “With nowhere to go,” was all he said, and he felt Corvai’s entire body straighten, could feel Corvai’s heart bleed for her. “You could change that.”

“Shut up.” Corvai sulked, their arms folded on the top slat and their head propped on top of them. “Don’t need that from you.”

Azram’s tattered ears flicked back. “Dear one, you made a star out of _nothing_. You could work a minor miracle to find her a home.”

“So could you, if you care so much,” Corvai snapped. Azram snorted and lifted his chin, backing away from the fence. The tension in Corvai’s back seemed, all at once, to ease, and they aimed a sorrowful look his way. “I didn’t mean—”

“Oh, but you did.” He tossed his head, hoping to rid himself of the urge to close the distance between them, to batter his horns against Corvai’s bones and see which of them could withstand the other. “Still makes you cross, does it? That I don’t _hate_ them?”

Corvai bit their lip, fangs digging so deeply that a trail of gold dripped from the corner of their mouth to their chin.

Before Azram could dig in, there was a gentle tapping sound.

Slowly, both angel and demon turned to where the kings stood near Jesus’s impromptu cradle, where Mary held her lively son. The child’s eyes were wide and dark, watching the slow descent of a stick to soft leather, striking the drum softly where it sat on the ground before the girl. She made an elaborate flourish of her hands, keeping Jesus’s attention. His watery cries had petered off entirely, and he reached a tiny, fat fist out towards the drum, the sticks, and the performer.

“That’s not one of mine,” Corvai said, almost accusingly.

Hesitantly, Azram confessed, “Nor mine.”

Sometimes — so rarely that one wondered if it was a mistake of the universe or if it had all been meticulously, carefully planned — humans could perform miracles of their own. It was the only explanation for how Jesus waved his arm, vaguely following the girl’s movements and laughing his first laugh.

“All of these gifts, and hers is the only one for _him_,” Corvai said with the warmth of love and praise.

“The one with nothing,” Azram observed bitterly. A pity, he thought, to give everything one had and to be overshadowed by those who had so much more to offer.

### 1 AD

After the kings’ arrival, the divine forces that had been holding Bethlehem in stasis began to make concessions. Soon, the family had a room in which to stay, sheltered safely from the oncoming autumn and winter. When the kings departed for their kingdoms, they took the musician with them, promising her a place in some distant court. Corvai refused to admit that the miracle was theirs, but Azram was certain of it.

With the stables no longer occupied, it made sense for them to find their own lodgings. Gone were the long nights of musing from dusk til dawn, spindly fingers twining through Azram’s wool as they agreed more often than they argued.

They invented other reasons to meet up.

This was his favorite. Neither of them needed to eat. In fact, he’d never once seen Corvai indulge in food the way they did wine until the night where they dined in a small, curtained room, sectioned off from the rest of the world in a cozy, comfortable warmth. They broke bread together while sitting on worn cushions, wine and honey flowed endlessly with a small, indulgent miracle of Azram’s making.

If their hands brushed, passing food and drink to one another, if Azram was allowed to watch the candlelight catch in Corvai’s eyes, if they ended the night arguing about whether Azram should eat mutton — none needed to know.

By the end of the meal, they were sprawled comfortably, Corvai’s wild hair spilling over the cushions, the ends tickling Azram’s face.

Azram knew the answer to another of his questions: the star had been leading the kings to Bethlehem.

With one of his questions now freed, he was left with the vast and endless space of possibility, and it rather tied his tongue.

He knew what he wanted to ask.

He knew, equally, that he wouldn’t.

* * *

Azram walked through the hallways of Hell, overwhelmed with cacophonies of sound and smell assaulting his senses, the tight press of bodies as humans and demons shuffled endlessly towards destinations that always seemed to move right before they could be reached. He clasped his hands behind him, letting his horns grow, the tenuous control over his human corporation slipping to something more comfortably demonic.

Caruk barely acknowledged him in the antechamber, waving him through carelessly. The courtroom was strangely quiet and dark, empty.

Azram dutifully walked before Lucifer’s dais and stood at attention, waiting to be noticed and keeping his head clear.

One moment, he went from where he’d been standing in the courtroom, and, in the next flutter of his useless heart, he was bent over, face pressed into Lucifer’s bed as his hands were secured to one another behind him then chained to the headboard. A shapeless demonic force yanked his knees apart, and Azram barely had the presence of mind to make an Effort at all before Lucifer took him.

It was bloody and rough, and the only word Azram managed to speak was a broken _‘Please’_ before Lucifer had wrapped a punishingly-cold hand around his dick and forced orgasm after orgasm out of him.

In the aftershocks, it took him hours to remember how to breathe, to settle his mind back into his worn and used body, to become aware of the room around him and the Devil’s claws digging into the meat of his hips.

“My Lord,” Azram breathed, hot and damp into the silk on Lucifer’s bed. “Oh, but I missed you.”

“Not enough to visit, I noticed,” Lucifer pointed out with a snarl, handling him with a firm hand, reveling in every shiver, every unintentional twitch.

“Forgive me,” he said, knowing that Lucifer wouldn’t until he’d wrenched the apology from the makeup of Azram’s being.

Azram would never tell Lucifer precisely how predictable he could be.

* * *

There was always a shift after they returned from their respective headquarters. Azram was aware of it now more than ever, the tangible movement in their relationship as they settled uneasily in the same places they’d been in before. “It went well, I take it?” he dared, dreading the silence now more than anything Corvai could possibly say.

“S’pose so,” Corvai said dully, refusing to commit to an answer.

“Can’t see how you’d have done anything wrong.”

A slight huff, a twist of the lips that might have been a smile: “You wouldn’t, would you?”

Mildly affronted, “What is that supposed to mean?”

“You’re a demon.” Corvai waved a dismissive hand, leaning back in their seat, looking rather obviously towards the nearest exit. “What would you know about what Heaven wants?”

It was almost cruel, but Azram didn’t flinch. “I imagine I knew once.” He sighed, making an assumption for the sake of moving the conversation along. “How does Gabriel figure into all of this? Must be important to concern him, but not enough to take care of it himself.”

“Dunno,” Corvai said, so flippant and cavalier that Azram felt…

Well, he felt _justified_. He was going to have to ask anyway. Why not now?

“Tell me.”

Corvai ground his teeth, spitting out a futile, “Fuck you.” Then, without hesitation, in a fury, they continued, “It’s Gabriel’s project. The humans’re supposed to make it easier for more people to get into Heaven. Give them something to emulate.”

“You’re giving them an _idol_,” Azram wondered as Corvai pushed away from the table before bringing their leg up to kick the table, shoving it across the ground, jamming it _hard_ into Azram’s midsection.

The demon doubled over, bile racing from his stomach upward to burn his throat as Corvai left.

* * *

“I am sorry.”

“Are you?” They sounded so _tired_. “What for, exactly?” Corvai lounged aggressively, pupils narrowed to a snake’s slits as they glared from where they sat in their window. “Just to be clear.”

Oh, dear, but they intended to be difficult. “I should have given you the chance to say it on your own.” Grimacing, “How may I make it up to you?”

There was an answer humming in their throat, the start of words that faded alarmingly quickly, fury cooling to embers. “Dinner. On you.”

“Naturally.”

He was being given a chance. It wouldn’t be enough to save this doomed friendship which would, one day, shatter irreparably.

But it would buy him a little more time.

### 2 AD

“You’re to return to Hell immediately.” Atrox flashed her fangs, stalking a careful, measured distance from him. Just out of reach. She’d learned.

Discorporating her wouldn’t be anything but petty. It wouldn’t change the contents of her message; it wouldn’t change his orders.

He needed to find Corvai.

Rather, he _wanted_ to find Corvai, to find the loophole, to— 

Thoughts crowded his head, flashes and fragments of a long and bloodied history.

His wanting had always been ultimately pointless.

Azram wasn’t ready to give up yet.

“How soon is ‘immediately’?” he asked with a bright smile, feigning ignorance and a certain softness. “A few years or so? Maybe a decade?”

“Now, Azram,” she hissed. “Before the sun rises.”

He could work with that. Atrox prowled closer, winding up, and Azram held his hands up in surrender. “I see; you’ll have no argument from me. I have a few fires to fan, and I’ll be down before you know it.” She eyed him with another snarl, and Azram hesitantly dropped his hands, clasping them in front of him. “Really. I don’t want to be here a moment more than I need.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. The longer he delayed, the more severe his punishment would be. He wasn’t looking forward to returning to Lucifer’s side, but he didn’t want to drag his feet, either.

Hesitantly and with great annoyance, Atrox conceded, “Fine.”

Azram waited until he felt her presence fade from Earth before daring to seek out Corvai. He found the angel wandering down the streets, vaguely following Joseph, Jesus, and Mary while keeping some measure of distance between them. The intent was not to crowd but to remain a vigilant guardian. How times had changed since Cain.

Azram’s feet froze in place. Everything that lay ahead… it wasn’t something he could shrug off, dance around, or ignore. It was disobeying orders. It was dangerous for them both. If Lucifer cracked open his head now…

But, then, would this make that much of a difference?

Maybe he had chosen certain doom a long, long time ago.

Azram flashed forward with a surge of power, grabbing Corvai and hurtling through space outside of Bethlehem.

Corvai fought back with a snarl, and Azram’s claws wrenched into their robe, hauling them close as dew-wet grass squished between his toes. For good measure, his wings burst into being, crowding around them both, blocking out the moon, the stars, throwing them both into darkness. “Dissolve the contract.”

“What? No!”

“Corvai. This is not a game.”

A sneer. “And if I say no? Which I am? What’re you gonna do, then? _Discorporate me_?”

“No, you _idiot_. I need you alive to—” His teeth ground together, the words twisting in his chest.

The problem with vaguely-worded contracts was that there was too much wiggle room. Sometimes — most of the time, really — it worked in a demon’s favor, but occasionally, the loophole formed a noose around the contractor’s own neck, squeezing tighter and tighter while the contractee barreled full-tilt towards an entirely-preventable doom.

“You need to live,” he rephrased, repeating, hoping—

But Corvai was always so stubborn. “Fine, then how about we go our separate ways? S’your fault if you don’t want your end anymore.”

A bitter laugh. “Oh, but I _do_.” He would never ask the question he wanted, but so long as it was available, there was always a chance that he could. He could compel utter and honest truth from the one being in the universe whose truth mattered almost as much as his own. “But this isn’t about me.”

“Of course it is,” Corvai sneered, trying to wrench his hands off of them. “Everything’s about you, isn’t it?”

It hurt. Searching for a way out as frantically as he was, starting sentences only to stop them — his pulse pounded in his head, and his veins felt like they carried something hotter than fire. Sweat beaded along his hairline, dampening his curls. “Angel,” he gasped, reeling forward, unintentionally pulling Corvai closer to keep himself from falling. “Remember?” he asked weakly. “What I’m not allowed to do?”

“Yeah. I don’t _want_ you to interfere.”

“Nh—” He managed a dry, pained laugh. “Not even to save him?”

Corvai froze so suddenly that if not for the wind catching in their hair, Azram might have thought that time had frozen instead. “How?”

“Can’t say. It’s,” he laughed again, nearly delirious. “Against the rules of the whole—” He waved a hand vaguely before settling it back on Corvai’s shoulder, fingers knotting in their clothes. “What’s fair is fair, take your answers from me. I don’t care, but—”

“Why?” Corvai asked. “Why don’t you care?”

A shaky breath, a slight smile. “Because. They weren’t for me, my dear.”

Corvai’s eyes moved, panicked over his face. “If this is a trick—”

“Kill me,” he offered easily. Why not? What was there worth living for in his miserable life in the first place?

Corvai reached up, cupping his face and tilting their head forward until skin met skin, forehead against forehead and the tether between them snapped.

“Herod,” Azram said breathlessly, refusing to waste time even as his eyes slipped closed, clinging to this moment, this feeling, this soft and kind lie. “He’s sending an army. He’s going to kill all the boys Jesus’s age.”

“What…?”

“You— _They_ have to leave before the army gets here. You need to lead them where Herod can’t reach.”

Corvai’s hands shook. “Demons can follow me. Us.”

Azram tilted his head, curls catching on Corvai’s hair. “I’ll cover your tracks at least until morning. Should be enough to confuse you with every other angel on Earth.”

Alarmed, they hissed, “You’ll get in trouble.”

“Yes,” Azram said, opening his eyes. “I imagine I will.” He grinned. “You’ll owe me. How’s that sound?”

Corvai’s eyes widened in increments, taking in an unspoken promise before they tilted their head forward, crashing their lips against Azram’s. It was clumsy, harsh, and over all-too quickly as Corvai stepped away. Six white wings unfurled, and they looked back to where Bethlehem stood, unaware of the imminent tragedy bearing down on it. “Stay alive.”

Azram’s mouth tingled, tongue hesitating to form words. Eventually, he managed a single promise: “‘Til next time, angel.”

When they both reappeared in Bethlehem, Corvai took off after Mary, and Azram stole one final glance over his shoulder before he got to work erasing any evidence that an angel had done anything spectacular in the City of David.


	16. the game.

The second he crossed the threshold into Hell, a heavy pressure settled behind his eyes. It was something searching, surging to claim, and Azram swallowed a long-suffering sigh as he released his hold on his corporal form. His horns curled around longer, silky ears, and he felt the sharp pinch at the base of his spine that indicated his tail had grown. Azram gritted his teeth, baring them in a facsimile of a smile.

Lucifer was already searching for him, waiting for him to appear in Hell. Testing him, which he’d failed spectacularly.

Corvai’s words rang in his ears. ‘Stay alive.’ Such a grim order. And it came at _such_ a hefty price.

Corvai didn’t know — they couldn’t, not without having been in Azram’s place — but that didn’t make it sting any less, especially after Azram had all-but vowed to see them again. Would it be easier if they had made a second contract? Or did he want something unbreakable to steady his willpower, to confine him to his word rather than having to see it through for himself?

He couldn’t afford to stand around in the midst of Hell and think of Corvai. He couldn’t afford to delay his meeting with the Devil more than he had already, and he desperately didn’t want his memories of Corvai to be the first thing Lucifer saw if he went looking. Azram shifted his shoulders as if he could physically roll the heavy weight of his own musings off his shoulders, he opened his eyes, and he got walking.

At first, Azram tried to think of Lucifer. In case Lucifer got impatient and started prying early, having thoughts of him at the fore would likely placate him. But step by step, Azram’s head cleared, thoughts fading to a low, hazy murmur. Even in the crowded hallways, everyone and everything seemed so distant. It was a dangerous headspace to be in, to be so undefended and open.

But really, what could be worse than what was already waiting for him?

The antechamber, for the first time in Azram’s experience, was empty.

Azram cared enough to clear out the fog in his head, blinking owlishly at the empty desk before a slow smile spread on his lips. He trailed a clawed hand over the desk, feeling the room shift around him, the contents moving in such small increments that they would be unnoticeable to anyone but Caruk whose personal Hell had been tampered with. It might take them a while to notice; Azram might as well have a measure of entertainment if he was to be trapped down here for the next few centuries.

Having dallied as much as he dared, Azram headed for the doors to the courtroom, flinching at the muffled roar of unmitigated chaos.

Ah, well. Nothing for it.

Azram slipped into the room, nose twitching at the smell of blood.

In the center of the courtroom, Hellhounds circled one another, baring teeth sharper than knives, eyes burning with a lust for blood.

As the beasts collided with snarls that would deafen a human, Azram met Lucifer’s own bright eyes from the other side of the courtroom. Lucifer raised his eyebrows, glowing brighter as if daring Azram to look away, now. As if he would concede guilt so easily.

Azram walked towards the blood-soaked arena, and, forced to choose between looking away to go around or taking the risk… well, the answer seemed obvious.

He stepped into the round, ignoring the snarls of the Hellhounds. Teeth fastened around his leg, and Azram manifested his wheels, cutting the beast across the face until it drew away with a furious bay.

“Get him out of there!” a demon spat, and Azram smiled almost serenely as his wheels spun faster and expanded their reach, warning others away as he approached the Devil’s dais.

“My Lord,” he greeted with a smile as blood soaked through his sandals. Let the rest of them hate him. Let them be furious.

He remained an object of interest to the Lord of Hell, in part due to their disdain.

“Put those away.”

Azram did, the shrapnel and sharp, cutting parts of himself folding in on themselves and away, leaving him bare. He braced for the tear of teeth, for the weight of a Hellhound slamming into him.

“Come here.”

Azram stepped forward, leaving bloody footprints behind as he ascended onto the dais. With a gesture, Lucifer indicated the seat at his side, and Azram sank to it. Fingers immediately threaded through his hair, tipping his head back, exercising control simply because he _could_.

The lack of questions was worrying, which Azram could only assume was the point. Lucifer wanted him on edge before he was questioned, wanted him to see the brutality of the Hellhounds as an implicit threat. Hellhounds didn’t need much training, not really, but Duke Hastur of Gluttony liked to give them humans to sharpen their teeth on, to practice killing and maiming before they were put to use. There was no reason he couldn’t use demons as well.

“You were late,” Lucifer murmured when the next fight ended, a hound bleeding out on the ground.

“I needed to do something.” It wasn’t a lie. Azram’s lips tingled again, remembering the warmth of Corvai’s pressed against them, the sudden shift that had left him reeling before needing to come back, needing to perform for Lucifer.

“What did you find out about the star?”

Lying to protect Corvai would do more harm than good for both of them if Lucifer found out. Even knowing that, his stomach turned, throat closing around the words. “It was made by an angel named Corvai.” Did he imagine it, or did Lucifer’s fingers tighten in his hair? Azram felt his heart thud heavily in his chest once before he forced it to an even, unhurried rhythm. “It was leading humans to the city of Bethlehem to witness a miracle. It was apparently the Archangel Gabriel’s project, but I’m afraid I don’t know if he ordered it to be made.”

“What miracle?”

Azram’s eyes moved, unseeing over the center of the courtroom as he put together the bigger picture with a quick calculation. Atrox had told him of Herod’s coming — he’d assumed it to be the work of his fellow demons, but there was no proof of that. Though, if he lied about Jesus when Lucifer already knew… Answer the question without assuming too many specifics. He should explain as if he thought he was the first to bring the news to Lucifer, not as though he’d been caught. “Gabriel impregnated a woman.”

Lucifer chuckled under his breath. “Hardly a miracle, is it?”

Azram glanced up at him with a smirk of his own. “Not like that, I’m afraid. She hadn’t known anyone else’s touch — not another human, not an angel, almost certainly not a demon. That was rather the entire point. A virgin gave birth to a child of Heaven’s making.”

Lucifer nodded, contemplating. “Was it retaliation for our experiment in Sodom and Gomorrah?”

An honest answer: “I don’t know.”

“What do you _think_, pet?”

It would make sense. It provided an alternative to sex, allowing angels to avoid sins of the flesh while spreading their powers outward. Azram’s fingers tapped along the step he sat on, eyes narrowed in thought. Caruk was cleaning up the dead Hellhound, ignoring the jeers of the demons of the court as they physically hauled the large beast away, covered in its blood and others that had dried.

“No,” he said finally. Lucifer’s hand gentled its tight clutch, claws drawing along the sensitive base of one of his horns. “Angels are too pompous to allow humans to ascend to their level. Maybe if they’d never eaten the apple, if they weren’t _capable_ of sin…”

“But they did,” Lucifer mused, sounding pleased with himself. “They _are_.”

“Precisely. Heaven wasn’t trying to bolster its own ranks.” He’d known that, of course, but it sounded much more impressive if he didn’t. “Maybe they intend for the child to be a leader among the humans.”

Lucifer smirked widely, smugly, and murmured. “Well. We’ve taken care of that.”

Azram nodded, leaning into Lucifer’s hand. “This time. There’s no telling when they’ll try again.”

As five more Hellhounds took the floor for combat, Lucifer asked, “And when, exactly, did you learn all of this?”

Did Lucifer know? If he did, lying would be admitting guilt. If he didn’t, the truth would mean admitting that he’d been avoiding Lucifer. Both were terrible options, truly, but… He’d learned. It was better not to be caught in a lie. “A year ago.”

Lucifer’s cold fingers wrapped around his horn, pulling his head back. “And what have you been doing for the last year?”

“You asked me three questions, my Lord. I wanted answers to all of them before I brought them to you.”

Lucifer’s burning gaze turning piercing; his lips curled into a sneer. Azram immediately knew that he’d misstepped. What was it that had given him away? He kept his own face neutral, going where he was led without resistance.

Then, Lucifer leaned back in the throne, watching as the next dogfight began, petting through Azram’s curls, disturbingly calm.

* * *

Azram waited. It was more annoying than anything, knowing that punishment was coming for him, that Lucifer was withholding his harsh judgement solely to make the anticipation worse. It was an easy trick, but there was something to be said for its effectiveness. As Azram wandered through Hell, he waited with bated breath, wondering each time if today was the day when some agent under Lucifer’s command would move.

Complicating matters, the Kingdoms were exactly as horrible as they’d always been. Was this attack an average outburst of demonic harassment? He could never know.

He kept waiting, and he acted as though he was unaware of what was surely coming.

The burning cold of Lucifer’s lips pressed against his own, pried him open to be taken, and Azram felt nothing.

### 4 AD

Only one demon still called him ‘Cherub’.

The rest of them had their own irritating affectations, but Barbus was by far the most persistent and annoying. Azram supposed that was why he did it: an ongoing reminder of who he had been, how helpless, that he could still be locked away if Barbus hadn’t _pitied_ him.

One day, he would _learn_.

A calm smile spread on Azram’s lips. There was a raging fire within him, begging to burn them both, but demons, on the whole, responded better to _calm_. They didn’t know how to deal with it. Wrath was expected, welcomed. Anger was embedded at the center of each of them. Confronted with a smile, with stillness, most demons would flinch.

It worked in his favor.

Barbus shivered under the weight of his attention, sneering. “I’m just saying that he _knows_.”

“Yes,” Azram said patiently, pressing his fingers into Barbus’s windpipe, claws grazing his skin as he lied. “Because I told him.”

“Not what our sources say, Cherub.”

“You know, I’ve considered ripping that tongue of yours out. All it does is get you into trouble.”

Barbus’s eyes glowed, teeth sharpening to fangs, but he didn’t struggle. “It doesn’t change the message. You’re gonna want to get your story straight before you go back down there.”

“Why tell me?” Azram traced a claw delicately along the line of Barbus’s jaw, smiling wider as the muscle twitched. “Out of the _goodness_ of your heart, I suppose.” When Barbus opened his mouth to speak, Azram gently moved the demon’s head from side to side and chided: “I’m terribly afraid this isn’t going to work out for you, Barbus.”

“What a surprise,” he gritted out.

Azram considered, eyes rolling away before he unleashed the fullness of his might, flooding Barbus with it until his corporation burst apart at the seams. With a sigh, he flicked the ashes and blood from his hand, and he turned his attention to the task before him. Satan, but it was bleak.

Luckily, he had a long walk to pull himself together.

* * *

There was a purpose to filtering the message through the Kingdom of Envy, to sending Barbus to bait the trap. Lucifer wanted him to know, that much was obvious. He wanted to see how Azram would react to the information that Jesus was alive, that he was watched over by the same angel who had created the star. But Barbus himself was a specific message, one that Azram had long suspected Lucifer of trying to send. He had never told Lucifer who had found him by the lake of fire, but the two had shown up time and again on Earth to deliver messages, orders, and to interfere.

Lucifer knew. He had known the day Azram had lost his name and his purpose, when had Fallen. He had known, and he had let the two demons try to hide him. He had let the next forty years pass and never once asked for the newly-Fallen angel. Lucifer had allowed him to lie, had indulged him from the very beginning.

Nothing in Hell or on Earth — hiding was a pointless exercise, giving him more room to hang himself through the guilt of omission.

If he gave up, if he told Lucifer everything in its totality, what would it get him?

If Lucifer _wanted_ the truth, he could have taken it the moment Azram stepped foot in Hell, when he’d felt that power looking for him, winding around him, pulling him closer to Lucifer’s side.

But the Devil hadn’t. He hadn’t because it would spoil the game. He wanted Azram to keep playing.

Azram released the air he’d been holding in his lungs, drawing in another heavy, almost-painful lungful of oxygen-starved filth.

Far be it from him to disappoint the Lord of Hell.

Azram didn’t return to the courtroom. Instead, he found a blank wall on the stairs down and leaned against it. In a test of wills, in a space where he should undoubtedly lose, he wasn’t confident about his ability to _force_ anything. But he could coax, gently reminding the makeup of Hell that he’d been to Lucifer’s rooms time and time again. He wasn’t forbidden from it, was he? Often made an appearance, having been brought there with great annoyance as if he’d forgotten where he was supposed to be. Hell resisted at first, and Azram pressed a bit more insistently, burning memories into the stone walls.

The moment something began to give, Azram knew he’d made it even if it took hours more. A door slowly formed under his hands, in the shape of his body, remembering, conceding. It tried at the last minute to forbid him, burning at his corporation, but Azram let it. He didn’t need a _body_. Hellfire consumed him, and the walls of Hell created and destroyed a door in an instant, giving him just enough time to slip through to Lucifer’s rooms.

Lucifer’s rooms were simple and elegant. A plush, comfortable bed was decorated with the white unicornhair blanket and several downy pillows, at least one of which was stuffed with feathers Lucifer had stripped from Azram’s wings. There was a massive hearth, offerings strewn across the mantle. Gold and precious stones gleamed in the dim firelight. Several blood-stained weapons that carried memories of immense and painful sacrifice cluttered between the less gruesome gifts. In the center was a single human skull whose empty sockets seemed to stare through Azram if he gave it anything more than a passing thought.

The stone floors and walls were completely smooth and cold — or would have been cold, if Azram could feel them.

There was such an airy weightlessness to being without a corporation. Azram sat primly on the edge of the bed and crossed one knee over the other. He settled his hands in his lap, fingers threaded together as he gave a serene smile and waited to be noticed.

Lucifer’s cold fury ravaged him before the Devil manifested himself in his rooms.

“My Lord,” Azram said as the Morningstar’s light blazed, banishing every shadow to some far part of Hell. Lucifer’s smile was wide and tilted, showing too many too-sharp teeth as his fingers wound through the black robes Azram defaulted to as Hell’s uniform.

Lucifer almost pressed him into the bed, only _almost_ before he hauled Azram up instead, pulling him off the floor so that he stood on his toes.

“You wanted to speak to me?” Azram asked, the picture of polite, professional inquiry, as if he was utterly unaware of the position Lucifer had put him in.

“So I did,” Lucifer conceded, hellfire eyes burning brighter, searing through him. “What made you think I wanted you _here_?”

Daring, Azram reached out, fingers around Lucifer’s wrist, the tips pressed into the jagged scales there. “I _was_ let in.”

Annoyance flashed lightning-fast over Lucifer’s face. Azram felt atoms attach themselves to his form, felt the shape of a body filling out around him until the inevitable weight grounded him terribly. It had been brought into the universe in pain. Azram doubted it would end.

Lucifer released him, and Azram smoothed out his robes as the Lord of Hell summoned a throne in the center of the room. It was tall, imposing, and made of the same smooth stone as the floor it sprang up from. Lucifer sat, tension ebbing once he felt he was in sufficient control again. The unpleasant surprise of someone invading a space that should be entirely, singularly his — Azram could grow fat feasting on the irony of it all.

He’d thrown Lucifer off, but the Devil wouldn’t be unbalanced for long. “The boy is alive,” he said, clearly struggling to find the masterful center of himself. “Why?”

“I would guess that Heaven got word about our move against them.”

Lucifer’s smile did not reach his eyes. “You believe there’s a traitor among us?”

Azram scoffed. “I think there are incompetent demons from the courtroom to the first circle and more incompetent humans than that. All it takes it one mistake, one prayer gone awry and overheard by someone in the Host.”

Lucifer nodded, strands of long, yellow hair falling into his face. He lounged a little more aggressively, tense and angled as if prepared to attack, searching. The dark scales on his body began to glow red, and his fangs gleamed with hellfire, daring Azram to defy him again. “Tell me. Who is Corvai to you?”

Lips warm against his own, eyes the color of molten gold. Red strands in dark hair, long fingers moving over a lyre’s strings. Almost four-thousand years of unasked questions, starting with a simple ‘why’. Why had Corvai been able to defy Heaven and not Fall? From where had the righteousness and courage come that allowed them to save eleven lives against Heaven’s will when Azram had Fallen for two?

The truth was messy, complicated, but certain facets could be useful if he knew how to spin them. “I suppose one might call them my adversary.”

“I was unaware you had that kind of history with anyone, much less an angel.”

Azram chuckled and kindly smiled. “I’ve had everything well in hand, my Morningstar. They are astonishingly easy to manipulate, and that’s when they notice me at all.” He stood before Lucifer, hands folded behind him, as casually as he’d ever been while giving a report. “Oblivious most of the time and impulsive the rest. I didn’t think to bother you with such a trivial matter.”

“Maybe you aren’t as clever as you think. Corvai’s been protecting the boy.” Lucifer’s delicate brow wrinkled, soft lips turned into a gentle frown. “Could they have found out from _you_?”

“From me?” he repeated as if Lucifer had asked if Azram had been on speaking terms with the Archangels. “I didn’t know Herod’s army was coming until they were well on the way and I was ordered to return to the head office.”

“Yet you remained for hours more.”

“To cause confusion. My miracles from that night are well documented.” Most of them were, in any case. “I released some horses from the stables, scared the Heaven out of them to cause chaos. They provided a distraction; most of Bethlehem shouldn’t have realized they were in danger until Herod’s army was at the gates.” A frown and hesitant consideration, “Oh, I should have used fire, shouldn’t I? Though that might have caused _more_ trouble for the army, prevented them from doing their jobs…” He trailed off. “Dear me.”

Lucifer lifted a hand from the arm of the throne. His spindly fingers wound in the fabric of the universe before he clutched it into his fist, pulling. Azram went from standing before him to being just in front of the Devil. Azram knelt without being asked, wings spread wide and eyes gleaming with what he hoped looked like desire and eagerness to please. When Lucifer’s fingers touched his lips, they parted.

“You are going to return to Earth, to finish what you allowed to fail.”

Azram couldn’t nod, couldn’t speak, could only allow Lucifer to fill him to the brim, spilling over.

“I want the boy destroyed, whether he’s really Their son or not.”

If it hadn’t been physically impossible, Azram would have choked.


	17. the son. (part one)

Their son.

The words rattled around in his head, repeating themselves, multiplying until they overwhelmed him, muffled his thoughts, left him in a terrible daze.

Their son. Explosions thundered in his chest in place of his heart, breaking him apart and remaking as white-hot lightning crackled in his veins. The clothes clinging to his body twisted and changed to something more modern, black color fading to a light beige.

A shame, really, that it would end up stained with blood, but Azram’s thoughts didn’t make it much further than that. The fury kept them from digging their feet in, propelling towards a plan. 

The anger was a stranger, foreign where it weighed in his chest and pushed, painfully bright and sharp out to his extremities. He could feel it in his feathers, down to where his feet carried him from Hell to Earth. The summer wind around him felt cold in comparison.

Anger needed a sense of entitlement behind it, a belief that he’d been, in some way, wronged. And he had, but not by Corvai. True, Corvai had lied, had hidden Jesus’s true nature, had _tricked him_.

But how had _he_ fallen for it?

How had he not realized he was being manipulated?

How had he not seen the kiss for what it was: staking physical claim, taking something of his now that Azram had given a part of himself to Corvai?

Phantom pain throbbed at his temples, and Azram hissed under his breath as he forced his body to hide the signs of his demonic nature. Concentration eluded him, lost beyond the wall of fog that echoed endlessly: Their son. Jesus was Their son.

Their son, the one thing in this wretched world that They might actually care for, and Azram had _protected him_.

His pupils remained unchanged.

Azram cast his awareness out in an immediate and fervent search for Corvai. He assumed, naturally, that they’d still be watching Jesus. It would be over with quickly, all of this. It would be a crushing defeat; Heaven might take centuries before they got up the courage to try again. Next time—

Next time, they’d know better.

Azram searched, scoured, biting back the violent energy that welled inside him like a storm, but beyond it, there was… nothing. The familiar threads that pulled him towards other angels and demons had gone strangely lax.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, pushing past the point of comfort, grasping for _any_ sign, but there was a vast emptiness stretching in every direction, inviting him to explore the void. Azram’s fingers dragged down the lightly-wrinkled skin of his face, nails scoring lightly as a dark chuckle caught in his throat. Bright eyes the color of an early-morning sky turned upwards, a toothy smirk widening on his lips.

“Protecting him, are we?” The blood in his mouth told him that They heard, that he was being punished, that he was being willfully ignored.

Very well. The scenery warped as he stepped forward, the fields replaced with the walls and rolling hills of Bethlehem. A map unfolded in his head, red roads spidering across the landscape, veins pumping people instead of blood. The quickest way to avoid Herod’s reach lay to the southwest, to Egypt. Following from there would be trickier, but, well. He’d been given a job, hadn’t he?

“Best get to work,” Azram mused with a smile. Lashes appeared along his body, eyes blinking open to peer and pull through the memories that lingered on the road. So many others had passed through here, but with patience and persistence, he soon found the panicked gathering of a frightened family, felt the soothing voice of their savior promising safety.

A pity it was that Azram couldn’t find them so easily. How lovely it would be to have a reprise of his and Corvai’s first meeting, all righteous fury and unbridled hatred. He’d never discorporated an angel before. It might be _fun_.

It might…

No. It would be wretched.

A sigh fell from his lips, a trickle of black blood seeping from the corner of his mouth as the multitudes of eyes closed and left him facing the long road to Egypt. He needed to get on with it. The sooner this was over, the better.

### 10 AD

Nazareth was a sizable city, teeming with life in its narrow streets. His heart panged when he first looked at the skyline, searching for the sight of a tower reaching towards the sky, fated to fall and unaware of its imminent destruction. He wondered if the feeling would ever fully pass before tamping heavily down on the ache in his chest.

Egypt had taken time. Too many people; not enough had known the refugees. He’d spent a year doggedly chasing the barest hint of a trail he could pick up, running it to its end before backing up to find the last possible branch. Finally, he’d found the community that had kept them safe, had found confidantes who knew that they were returning to Nazareth. The journey here shouldn’t have taken as long as it did, but he’d kept a low profile, traveling slowly to avoid angels.

The bother with not being able to sense them meant that there could be hundreds about or none at all. Azram certainly didn’t want to deal with discorporation. The paperwork was atrocious enough without having to beg Lucifer to reinstate his body and for whatever else Lucifer decided he’d like Azram to beg for. He would of course, easily and without complaint, but he dreaded it. He’d avoid it if he could.

So he moved as slowly as he dared, assuming that Heaven could sense him despite having somehow hampered his own abilities. A stealthy approach meant they might overlook him, might mistake him for another angel — he might get away with this.

He came upon a modest home at the foot of a hill.

Children laughed the same as they ever had. With the evening drawing in, the daily chores and work had come to an end, leaving time for play. Just listening to them, Azram could imagine the distant roll of thunder, the smell of impending rain.

He knew Jesus in an instant. The boy was strangely somber, sitting apart and watching the play with the curiosity of an outsider. None of the other humans spoke to him, beckoned him in — what use was there in asking a question with a predetermined answer?

Azram’s fingers twitched but did nothing more. He didn’t get the chance before that round face lifted and dark eyes met Azram’s despite the infernal power that should have shifted human attention away.

Jesus looked at him, into him, unblinking and Azram felt horribly, terribly _seen_. Flayed apart and raw, millennia of mistakes strewn about to be picked clean by whatever carrion happened to fly by until the bare, bleached bones gleamed in the unforgiving sun.

If he moved now, who would stop him? God? He leaned forward, unable to tear his eyes away as he fortified himself. Any moment now — any moment, he would strike, he would end this the way he should have eight years before. He would be what God had made him when They threw him away. He would be cruel and heartless, merciless and terrible.

Jesus smiled at him, for him, and the unwanted kindness splintered on impact with his chest, shrapnel tearing through his heart and lungs until his body shivered without his permission, ice running through his veins.

Azram crumbled under the weight of it. An uncertain step away shattered the dam to pieces, and before he knew it, he was on the far side of the city, emptying his stomach of its indulgent contents and then something _more_. The ichor seeped from his organs, pushing out from his mouth, his nose, his eyes, leaking into the dust. Some caught in his throat, tasting of something stronger than brimstone, and Azram struggled with the impulse to breathe, with the sensation of drowning in whatever the boy had almost purged from him.

A wretched cough tore from him, a splatter of fetid ink falling from his lips, staining his teeth, his clothes, the Earth.

He dragged the back of his hand over the gash of his mouth, sneering and trying not to think of what might be left if he’d let it all bleed out.

### 12 AD

Azram didn’t have a head for dates. The passage of time had been enigmatic at the start, and as calendars were invented and discarded, he found it harder to track time in a way that was at all meaningful. Corvai had explained once when he’d complained. They’d talked about rotations around the sun, the tilt of the Earth, the way this planet was _perfect_, simply _ineffable_—

A sharp feeling stung through his chest at the memory, and a stronger, more bitter wave of loathing followed in its wake.

The _point_ was that he wouldn’t have known it was the Passover if he hadn’t followed the family to Jerusalem. He ought to, probably. He’d been there, after all. Had bled out in the streets with a branch of bloodied hyssop in his hand with the incarnation of Death hanging over him.

Memories of that night swirled just beneath the surface of the wrecked and ruined country, of Corvai turning their back to him, of the desperation that had driven him step by weary step until his body had started to go cold at the fingers and toes, until exhaustion pulled him into a sweet and soft embrace.

Would that be what death felt like for the likes of him?

A body jostled his own, pressing him into the wall of the temple. Azram pressed tighter against it, shrouding himself in the shadows and waited for his quarry to emerge from that holy place into his waiting jaws. It would be over quickly — it was the least he could do for the boy. It was what he needed to do. He’d given up approaching Jesus without the element of surprise. Every time he tried, Jesus would _look_ at him, and Azram felt something weaken and quake within him before it started tearing something much more vital than his body apart. 

He tipped his head back against the brick wall, glaring up at the blue sky, at the sun that passed behind fluffy clouds, light cutting into thin curtains where it passed through and fell upon the world.

“Stop me,” he breathed to no one, swallowing the blood in his mouth.

No blazing light banished the comfortable dark, and he was left with knowing that the time would run short.

Jesus had come to the temple alone after separating from his family. He sat inside and listened to the rabbis, and when he left…

No amount of angelic interference would save Jesus unless they were willing to bring him back from the dead. A calculated risk — the precise reason Azram had waited until now, until they were in this bigger city surrounded by those celebrating the Passover, where the number of witnesses meant that someone would slip through the cracks, would remember a broken child being brought back to life.

The reverence and worship would fall to the savior; the angel would become the idol instead.

Either the boy would die, or an angel would be put into an impossible position.

A pity Corvai wasn’t a healer, that they wouldn’t be dangling from that fine thread before being unceremoniously _cut_ for no reason.

A _pity_—

Fingers brushed the hem of his sleeve, fluttering away so quickly that it might have been an accident, but Azram’s skin prickled, a surge running down his spine as he glanced — as casually as he could manage — to his side.

“You made it,” Corvai murmured, sharp face softened with a smile. The honey-gold of their eyes almost glowed even in the darkness. “I—” they started then stopped, swallowing around the words as they crowded, overwhelming Corvai’s tongue. “After Bethlehem, I thought it might be a century or more—” They shook their head, a few strands of hair escaping the modest cloth that wrapped elegantly around their head, coiled around their shoulders.

The fury had smoldered to embers years ago, going cold as ice crystallized in his cracked-open chest. It blazed to life now, wildfire burning through him, through his hands as he twisted them in Corvai’s clothes, pushed them solidly against the wall of the temple.

Corvai, a better actor, a better _liar_ than Azram had given them credit for, stared with wide eyes as he sneered. Azram braced an arm across their chest before reaching up to thread his fingers through the cloth around their shoulders. “Wait, Ram—!” Corvai yelped. Azram shoved them with a snarl as he yanked the covering off.

How dare they. How _dare **they**_. Azram’s fingers curled in their hair, silk-soft strands catching on the roughness of his palm, on the edges of the bricks until it looked as though he held the blood-stained Nile in his hands. Gone were the strains of copper lost amid the obsidian waves, swallowed whole by the ruddy halo that matched the deep flush of their freckled skin. Red as clay, as the dust that had been molded into Adam’s body, as the fire that consumed Azram whole. As if he could devour salvation, he pressed his open mouth to the waves of Corvai’s hair as his hand slid to cup their neck, pulling them forward with bruising strength.

Control. He needed to be in control, to wrest it back after they’d stolen it away. Bless them back to Heaven, how dare they—

“You like it?” Corvai asked, breathy, awed. Liar. _Liar_.

Their long fingers curled against his nape, urging him closer, and Azram pushed himself away. The heavy thud of his heartbeat rang in his ears, and he smoothed his face over, lips tilted into a disdainful sneer.

“When were you going to tell me?”

Gentle hands reached out for him before pulling back to their chest, eyes wide. “When I saw you again. I thought maybe in _private_—”

How stupid did they think he was? “No, Corvai.” A smile, too sharp, unforgiving, and cold. “When were you going to tell me that he was Their son?” Stricken, like the unicorns, like the children at the flood, another pointless piece of manipulation. How long had they been pulling his strings? “Hm?”

“What would you have done?” Then, sharper as realization dawned, terror trembling in their voice, “What are you going to do?”

A derisive scoff, “What do you think? Interfere.”

“No.” Injured, weak, “You can’t.”

Azram clicked his tongue in a soft tut, drawing his fingers along the line of Corvai’s jaw. “Why not, angel? Because it’s _Heaven’s_ plan?”

“Because I’m _asking_ you not to.” Azram rolled his eyes, and Corvai grabbed him again, pulling him closer. “I’m _begging you_, Ram, as your _friend_—”

“You,” a hand spread on their breastbone, pressing them into the brick with more force than was strictly necessary, “are my _enemy_.” The fingers on their jaw caught their chin, pulling it down with a gentle swipe across their skin. Softly, “About time you started acting like it. _Really_. You’ve kept me waiting for so long.”

Corvai’s hand wrapped around Azram’s wrist, clinging, burning with the power of their divinity. “I don’t want to do this.”

“Then don’t,” Azram offered almost cheerily. “You could stop, you know. Let me take care of what I came to do, then we’ll go get dinner. How’s that sound?”

“After you kill him,” Corvai said dully.

“Why not?” Azram’s smile ticked wider. “He’s only a human. How many of those die by the day?” He murmured, “Why should he be any different?”

“He’s just a _kid_.”

“I know,” Azram said terribly gently. “And it will be so inconvenient, won’t it? To pretend to care. The good news is, Corvai, that you’re so very good at it. Always have been. After all, you almost fooled _me_.”

He expected fury, a mounting rage, an eruption from the carefully-curated persona that Corvai had been hiding behind for several thousand years.

Instead, Corvai’s lips trembled, eyes wide and watery as they forced divine power to flood through him, smiting him on the spot.


	18. the hiatus.

The instant Azram’s body burst apart, the tether between his soul and Hell went taut, pulling him down. The Earth consumed him, swallowing him through the crust, the mantle, until he was submerged in the molten heat of the outer core and plummeting ever closer to the exact middle of the planet, deeper than any human had ever been or might ever be.

Liquid fire crowded through his mouth and nose, suffocating this form’s parody of breath. It filled him from the inside out, until the thin veil of his incorporeal form strained as if to tear, to shatter into several decillion pieces on impact.

Azram felt the collision with the star at the center of the planet like a physical explosion. It wracked through him, tore through his battered wings, shattered the memory of bones and consumed him in a blaze of bright and horrible light. Photons crowded in the empty cavern of his chest and slipped through his fingers like the finest grains of sand. The faintest outline of his body was left behind, a faded afterimage that finally staggered through to Hell.

Azram could have walked. He should have — no one in their right mind _rushed_ to Lucifer’s side. Yet, with a single blink, he moved several floors down, and with another, he stood inside the antechamber, hands already braced on the broad, dark doors to the courtroom.

If there was a protest from behind the desk, he didn’t hear it as he pushed his way into the courtroom. The usual arguing was but a dull roar in his ears as he stalked across the room with single-minded determination. Fury burned brightly at the center of him, warming Azram even as the other sensations fell away, and he came before Lucifer, striding onto the dais without waiting.

Perhaps that was the mistake, intending to demand anything while in the public eye. Or perhaps it was that he’d finally run out of the seemingly-innumerable graces given to him by the Lord of Hell.

“You were discorporated,” Lucifer observed with mild interest.

“I’m afraid so.” It wasn’t a lie, not really. “The boy has a guard of angels. One took notice before I could strike.”

“You failed.”

Azram smiled, a tilted, sharp facsimile of the real thing. “As would anyone else in my place.” His humor wore thin, and Azram purred, hands sliding over the arms of the throne as he leaned close. “Send me back.”

He would show them. By the time Jesus left the temple, Azram would be back as if he’d never left, and all of Heaven would see, unable to turn their eyes away, unable to lie about what stood before them.

Lucifer’s fingers raked over his wrist, claws catching on the surface of him — it would be too great a disservice to call it ‘skin’ — before his own lips thinned into an irritated smile. “No.”

Millennia of patience stood between Azram and the eruption of rage that blazed through him as righteous and cleansing as glory ever had. “They’re in a vulnerable position, my Lord. The Heavenly guard won’t be expecting such a swift return. The boy—” No. A quick correction, smooth as silk, “The _son_ won’t stand a chance.”

The deliberate emphasis sank in like the smooth cut of a blade. Lucifer’s pupils widened, scales shimmering red before going dark and cold. His fingers twitched, claws spearing into Azram’s form, yanking him closer. Azram’s hands fell further up the throne, body angled aggressively, precariously forward while Lucifer tipped his head to murmur in Azram’s ear. “You’re forgetting your place, pet.”

“I live to serve,” he reminded. “You tasked me with Their child’s demise. I would be simply remiss if I let the opportunity pass me by.”

Lucifer paused and hummed, the hint of brilliant music cutting to Azram’s core. “Very well,” he said, but Azram had no sooner started to pull back than a hand tangled in his hair, wrenching him closer. An invisible set of fingers trailed over the glowing brand between the vague approximation of his shoulders, pressing inward until Azram hissed, shuddering forward as his wings flared behind him. Lucifer forewent words, searing his command into Azram’s mind. Azram trembled, fingers gnarling against the throne.

“Have I made myself clear?”

“Perfectly, my Lord.”

Azram felt a pressure against his chest, and rather than resist, he let it push him back. What felt like a single step brought him to a much smaller room where several other demons suddenly appeared. Azram snapped his fingers, and a map of Jerusalem appeared on a table, stretched and torn but readable still.

One of them snarled, “What d’_you_ want?”

Azram smiled. “I’m here to give you a job on behalf of our Lord Satan.”

They fell into line neatly after that, allowing Azram to explain the temple, the layout of the city, the angels prowling around the boy.

“An’ what do we get if we do it right?” one of them asked, her breath running hot over the edges of his celestial body. She pressed too close, certainly more daring than she would be in Lucifer’s presence.

Brightly, Azram said, “Why, my dear girl, you get to live.”

* * *

They failed.

They stalked in through the doors to the antechamber sans corporal forms, edges shimmering with an unnamed tension as they stood before the Lord, the Kings, and the entire Court and confessed their failings. Azram bit the tip of his tongue to keep himself from smiling and visibly enjoying their failure. They squabbled and argued over the details, but they agreed on the angel responsible who had fallen on them like an avatar of War.

Corvai did have _such_ a temper.

Lucifer dismissed the demons to some far part of Hell. A sneer twisted on his beautiful face; his fingers tapped impatiently at the arm of his throne. Azram felt the Devil’s attention land on him as if someone had driven a spike of ice down his spine. He kept his gaze leveled forward, head tilting into the hand that roughly scraped across his scalp.

Memories welled, unbidden and pulled to the surface, divine Wrath battering against his weak chest, streaks of crimson and gold painting the memory. Corvai’s hands were gentle, seeking permission, tentative and sweet, and Azram could taste the bitter longing on his own tongue, the wretched desire that damned him as much as a gifted sword.

Lucifer loomed in the periphery, unbearably bright and keenly watching as Azram provoked, as he failed to defend himself, as he invited Corvai to surrender.

Lucifer could feel, too, Azram’s certainty that he could have his cake and eat it. Cold and uncompromising, he calculated with expert precision how far he could push both the angel in front of him and the Devil that waited for his return, who he would need to restore his body.

The Devil’s eyes snapped to him, the weight of his fury pressing in. If he’d had bones, they would have broken. If he’d had a heart, it would have stopped. As it was, he stood beneath the crushing, oppressive force of Lucifer’s anger and failed to flinch.

“Very stupid, pet,” he hissed, stepping closer as the memory faded, leaving them alone in the vast expanse of Azram’s soul, an unpopulated universe, cold and void.

A hum, a bit of consideration, a decision. “I disagree.”

Lucifer chuckled mirthlessly. “Oh, do you, now?”

Azram shrugged, confessed, “I was greedy. Nothing wrong with a bit of Greed, you know. I had no reason to think you’d change your mind. And when you did…” He gestured with his hand, the emptiness forming the room elsewhere in Hell, the map, the other demons looking over his shoulder as he told them everything they would need to know to succeed. Azram folded his hands behind him, standing as he had in the meeting. “I gave them everything.”

Lucifer stood suddenly behind him, scaled hands tearing at the memories of a robe. Azram tilted his head back, letting it rest on Lucifer’s shoulder as more jagged scales cut into their familiar grooves. “I have given you everything,” he murmured as a hand lay possessively on his throat.

“You were pleased with their failure,” Lucifer accused, sweet venom dripping into Azram’s ear.

He dared, here in this space where no one else would hear, “I _am_ a demon, Lucifer. I’ve found it’s best to have a sense of humor about these things.”

The Devil’s laugh ravaged him like a wildfire, burning at the center of him even as Lucifer brought their attention back to the courtroom, leaving Azram’s inner workings lonely and bereft.

* * *

With every failure, there came punishment, impatient cruelty that clawed desperately for suffering in place of satisfaction.

Lucifer was getting more inventive. He’d refused to give Azram another body, and pain, sensation was nothing more than a flash in the pan, over with in an instant. Regardless of how severe his hand fell, it never hurt once it was lifted. But Lucifer had once been an Archangel and a creator; he had put his tools down but never forgotten their use.

There was a deeper anguish than physical pain. Lucifer lingered, sharp edges ripping open even the softest memories, endless light pouring into the shadows of ignorance and ambiguity, exposing them to the harsh truth.

“Look at you,” the Morningstar murmured with the cruelest affection.

Azram could feel the useless weight of the sword in his hand, could feel the fear that bled at the center of him. The world beyond was cold and gray, lifeless. How he hadn’t looked upon it at the time, how he’d taken it for granted. The firelight eyes were as bright as they’d ever been, scales devouring the light with all the greed Lucifer had ever possessed.

_“This is the stock of angels these days,”_ the serpent hissed. The fear clutched at Azram’s throat, tightening around the holy words that might have saved him. _“I suppose all the worthwhile ones Fell.”_

“Look at _you_,” Lucifer said again, and Azram did. He stood in two places: the helpless angel and the observer just behind the serpent’s eyes. He could see, now, what he couldn’t then: how his rosy cheeks drained of their color, the terror that rolled off of him in waves.

_“Begone, fiend.”_ Too soft, too yielding. Azram could taste his own fear, could only watch with disgust as he stood frozen and unmoving, defeated without a single blow.

“Do you remember him?” It was worse that Lucifer was genuinely curious, prying deeper into the memory, pulling out the vivid recollection of who he had been, the righteous certainty, all of it now tainted with millennia of hindsight. The name had been cut from the universe, left behind, forgotten by all but the most powerful and by the one cursed to remember. Lucifer reached for it and found it, squirreled away and buried somewhere in his useless heart. Pulling it out of the ground was like pulling a tooth; all relentless pressure and sharp pain stinging down to the root. The relief when it popped loose was nothing compared to the feeling of loss, the hole it left behind.

“Aziraphale,” Lucifer breathed into him. The memory fractured, splintered, recollection pulling in every direction until he heard Their voice speaking unbearable kindness and again with concealed disappointment. He had already failed Their test; he had already Fallen from Their grace, even if his wings were still white, even though he hadn’t yet set foot into Hell.

_“Angel of the Eastern Gate. Angel of the Morning.”_

For the first time, he flinched. He tried to tear himself away, ripping apart at the seams to escape the hold on him. Lucifer allowed him to unravel, murmuring words of sweet encouragement only to pull him back together, to force him to relive the exact moment when he had died.

“There’s nothing like it, is there?” Lucifer’s hand rested over his chest as if he could feel the beating of a heart, as if he were protecting it.

He could feel the heavy weight of Their silence, could only dread the discord as his soul attempted to distance itself from his fate. It struggled and cried out, pleaded for mercy and tore him apart. The despair set in before he’d even begun to Fall. He had been helpless then, and he was helpless now, held fast and drowning.

“Nothing quite as cruel nor anything half as kind. Told you everything you needed to know all at once.”

God tore Their love from him, and for the first time in over four-thousand years, Azram wept. Out of fury, out of hatred, out of self loathing, out of pain — the tears rose like a flood, and he gave in. Lucifer released him, and he fell to his knees and _sobbed_. He beat his hands against the ground, tried to scream only to choke on the sound.

Why not? What point was there in pretending to be unaffected? Why not let Lucifer destroy him?

The memory faded to a merciful darkness.

To his surprise, Lucifer didn’t eject him back into the courtroom, facing endless noise and countless demons, but allowed him to cry until he was all but empty. It was a painful kindness, and Azram flinched again as Lucifer touched him, cupping his face to hold him still before soft lips pressed a searing-cold kiss to his brow.

“One day, the Gates of Heaven and Hell will open, and the Great War will be upon us. And when I put a sword in your hand, you are going to do better.” Lucifer placed a soft kiss on top of each eyelid. The tears on his cheeks and caught still in his eyes froze, blinding him, holding him in a comforting darkness. “You are going to make every single angel account for their failure.”

Lucifer’s lips brushed across his, a lulling purr rolling through their shared air. “Including your _adversary_.”

With a sigh and a sharp smack of his cheek, all evidence of his tears and of Lucifer’s touch vanished as the Lord of Hell straightened. Azram stared up at him, the newly-emptied space inside of him kindling with futile, impotent rage. A possessive fury snarled through his bones, and Lucifer allowed it to wash over him with the tiniest hint of a smirk. “The next demon I send up there _will_ assassinate Their son, or we will end up right back here until you _remember_ what you should be fighting.”

* * *

So it was.

Yet, in some strange way, Azram looked forward to it. Nothing in Hell thrilled him or enthralled him quite like demons slinking into the courtroom, bearing proof of their failures. He could _feel_ Lucifer’s incensed agitation the moment he recognized his latest agents. It built like a crescendo, stifling the entirety of the Court, choking all attempts at levity or distraction.

Azram knew he would pay for their failures yet he listened with a smile. They spoke of Corvai the way humans spoke of storms: an insurmountable force of destruction, unpredictable and terrifying.

Lucifer punished Azram for each and every one, dragging him into his own mind, perusing his memories of Eden with voyeuristic cruelty.

“So that’s where you learned it.”

Cold, thin fingers wound around his horns, pulling his head up before he could try to look away. Eve and Adam touched one another lightly, curiously, experimenting. How proud he’d been of them when they’d discovered how their bodies fit together, when they began to couple—

“You watched them _fuck_.”

He had. There was nothing here that spoke of something ineffable and inexplicably beautiful. They rutted like animals. They had learned it from animals. And he—

Gentle accusation: “You _liked it_.”

An inescapable truth in the form of unwanted Lust. How enjoyable it had looked, how _new_. Their pleasurable moans had put the birds to shame, and he had _watched_.

He had _wanted_ for himself. After all, hadn’t he always followed along behind them, longing to taste everything they tried for themselves?

“Oh, pet, you only had to ask.”

Azram couldn’t move a muscle. Not to speak, not to blink, not even to glance away from the shameful memory.

Wandering hands plunged into him, nudging aside the viscera of reality, searching for that kernel of longing. It bloomed within him, consumed him whole, yet Lucifer crooned, toyed, touched, pulling Azram closer. A click of his tongue, a condescending tut, and Lucifer left him on the very edge of sanity. The world around him swam, connecting fuzzily to thousands of moments precisely like this one, to helpless arousal and immediate surrender.

Lucifer nosed behind his ear, and the memory shifted. Azram was sprawled against a wall of the courtroom, wings held down and open, hands reaching for the Devil and inviting him in. _“Lucifer. Oh, Lord, please—”_

He could feel Lucifer’s power pressing into him, shattering him apart and pulling him together again before he realized he was broken. He could feel the weight of his own wanting, the desperate emptiness begging to be filled.

_“Please. Oh—”_

_“There? Hm?”_

He’d begged for it, and Lucifer had indulged him, had given and given until Azram could metaphysically take no more.

This was not an indulgence now nor a test that he could fail. It was a punishment, a reminder crueler than making him relive the Fall. The scars from Lucifer’s scales were made and remade again and again, marking, claiming, taking him without a struggle. He could feel the pleasure behind Lucifer’s sadism, could revel in his own misery if it didn’t feel vile and invasive. He could feel the aching gap that Lucifer had filled so neatly because, at the core of himself, he had wanted this: a master, a ruler, someone to own him after he’d been discarded.

And yet, he looked forward to it.

Because every failure brought Lucifer closer to the wonderful, horrible realization that Azram was the _only_ demon who wouldn’t fall to Corvai. He was the only one who could kill Their son.

Azram only had to endure a little while longer.


	19. the son. (part two)

### 25 AD

Another failure brought another volcanic burst of rage from the throne behind him. His nape prickled in anticipation, something like dread curling heavily in his stomach and sinking even as Azram smiled. The decade of failure had been demoralizing to say the least, but worse was its effects on Lucifer. His already-thin patience had worn itself to the bone, straining under the immense pressure as his options dwindled further and further.

Azram kept his thoughts to himself, but there was something undeniably entertaining about watching the Lord of Hell struggle with a _human_. His iron-fisted grip on Hell tightened in his anger, attempting to rein the chaos he’d carefully constructed back in line. Fear was a powerful motivator, but in the cracks, between the bluster, Azram felt hesitation. The Kingdoms of Hell were _worried_. The Great War, when it came, needed to be won, but the Hellish operatives were struggling with such a small operation. They didn’t know how to cope with it. They didn’t know how to keep morale up.

Lucifer seethed in the safety of silence. He couldn’t afford flashy outbursts or a surplus of ugly emotions in front of anyone much less the Court. But Azram _knew_. He could tell with every plunge into his own memories as Lucifer ravaged him. Azram was intimately familiar with his claws and fangs, with the harsh scrape of his blade-sharp scales. He knew when something changed, when something wheedled under Lucifer’s skin and really _got_ to him.

Lucifer couldn’t return to Earth himself without risking a return to war, and he wouldn’t risk it now, not with the confidence of the average demon faltering as it was.

With every attempt, his options dwindled, and Azram refrained from offering to go in his place, quelling his excitement as the logical conclusion loomed on the horizon.

Lucifer would rail against it for a time before he would relent. The longer Jesus was on Earth, the closer Heaven became to fully enacting whatever plans they had in store for the son of God. They both knew it, which made the waiting all the more enjoyable to Azram who seldom enjoyed anything when he was stuck in Hell.

The courtroom emptied suddenly save for the Kings. The loss of their courts confused the five of them for less than a blink before their eyes turned towards Lucifer’s dais. The Lord of Hell sprawled in his throne, silent, still, and oh-so deadly. He considered, frowned, then, with an irritated flick of his hand, he sent them away as well.

Azram was always keenly aware of Lucifer: how he was sitting, how he chose to move, where his attention wandered. Azram knew what it meant when they were alone.

Lucifer’s rage could be, in the strangest way, comforting. Azram knew the capabilities of his Wrath, knew the terrible things he would do to impart his chosen message. But when that anger cooled and left contemplation in its wake, the variables were a lot less certain. Not long ago, he might have nudged his head against Lucifer’s knee, might have taken the first step to bridging the gap between them. Inviting the suffering Lucifer gave always made it more bearable. But he knew how easily Lucifer would read his eagerness to return to Earth. However he chose to offer himself up would be seen as manipulation and would push the Devil’s thin patience to its absolute limits.

So he sat tamely, eyes leveled forward as if the Court was still in session until he felt a cold finger trace the sensitive area around the base of his horns.

It was alarmingly soft. Especially in the wake of such violent fury.

He almost longed for the scrape of a claw, for the feeling of fire. Azram longed, more than anything, to know where precisely he stood at this exact moment.

But if Lucifer was anything, he was unrelenting. He touched Azram almost idly, letting the silence drag unbearably on, and he kept his hand moving. He captured the tip of Azram’s ear, pulling on the fabric of reality until it elongated and softened under his fingers into the sheep’s ear Azram preferred to conceal. A nail traced along the fine fur there until Azram was struggling not to twitch, teeth clenched together and focus narrowed to the way Lucifer played with him.

Finally, the Lord of Hell dipped into the shallow breadth of his memories, pulling out the muted, stifled amusement as yet another cavalcade of disappointment paraded its way into the courtroom. There was some measure of curiosity, wondering how poorly they’d done compared to the others. But mostly, there was the satisfaction of knowing that they’d failed.

“All of that arrogance,” Lucifer noted in a bored tone. “But how many times have they discorporated _you_?”

“Every time that I’ve let them,” Azram said, daring. His teeth dug into the inside of his lip as Lucifer’s hand fell to his nape, claws digging into the meat there. “It won’t happen again.”

“It won’t,” Lucifer agreed with dark certainty. Dread screwed itself sharp and frigid into his gut, but Azram let it pierce through him without a struggle. Regardless of his anger, his frustration, Lucifer would have to weigh the potential for a significant Heavenly victory against the length of Azram’s leash sooner rather than later.

Finally, Lucifer’s fingers trailed up one of his horns before they curled around it. With the slightest suggestion of pressure, Azram moved, head falling back, eyes finally drawing up to Lucifer’s face. The Lord of Hell watched over this part of his domain with feigned disinterest, quietly contemplative.

“I’m not going to give you another body to frivolously discard when you feel like it.”

His teeth ground together, irritation ticking at the corner of his jaw before he forced the tension out.

Lucifer wasn’t done talking. There was another option.

“You may possess a human. Override their blessed free will, conquer them, and use that fragile body to do my bidding. If you succeed, I may choose to indulge you again, pet.”

Lucifer had no use, now, for threats. Nothing he could promise would motivate Azram more than the freedom he wanted for himself or the knowledge he already had of Lucifer’s predilections for torture.

The hand on his horn curled tightly, fire burning down it, charring the skin around the base and catching his curls alight. Then, the instant his hand fell away, the pain disappeared, leaving only the memory behind.

“Go,” Lucifer commanded.

Azram obeyed.

* * *

Dying.

He was dying. She was dying. Every moment of every day a steady decay of cells, muscles, organs.

Fear.

Was this why the angels said ‘be not afraid’? Was this the point of uncaring platitudes: to soothe the painful thunder of a heart, to quell the storm that rushed through a body as it realized how fragile it was, how near death?

Breathe.

Air shuddered into his lungs, her lungs, his, her, his, the point where one ended and the other began becoming muddied and blurry.

She screamed from his mouth; he lit fires in every part of her brain. What she saw was more than any human was meant to withstand.

She sounded like a sheep, bleating like an animal, and Azram tore himself from her with a distinct rip.

He felt vaguely as if he’d left something behind.

* * *

Dying.

Fear.

Fear made the dying faster.

Lightning arced through every nerve, muscles taut and singing with pain. Eyes wild, breath stuttering, fruitlessly struggling.

Breathe. _Breathe_.

He fell in the empty field, tearing at his hair, his clothes, choking on nothing and dying for his troubles.

The poor thing’s heart was going to explode at this rate. Thunder rolled overhead, warning.

A miracle the bolt didn’t hit him; absolutely nothing short of a miracle as he wallowed in the mud, staring wide-eyed into the rain as a nearby tree burst into sudden, violent flame.

The blessed thing wouldn’t _breathe_.

Azram left.

* * *

Dying — this body was dying, decaying, breaking, bleeding.

Fear — fear was carved into its bones, branded on its heart, so pervasive that it numbed in mere moments to the new fury caged within it.

Breath shuddered into its lungs without needing to be reminded. It had spent so long struggling to breathe that it lifted the new weight with ease.

A whip licked across its shoulders, leaving a trail of fire blazing down its back as blood joined with blood and pattered onto the ground.

Another damp, heavy breath heaved in its lungs.

“Get up.”

Rage beat against the bars of its prison, stubborn persistence pushing it to its feet. The caged mind of Hizkiah dreamed of violence, of power, of turning — how many times had he turned his body into a weapon only to find himself too blunt, too weak to break free of his chains? It was so tired. He was so—

“Then allow me,” Azram offered, the words dripping from their shared lips, a gentle promise as the lash fell across the plane of his back again. Azram didn’t flinch.

“Deliver me,” Hizkiah prayed, and Azram pushed outward, filling the space inside the body like a glove. These were his hands, his feet, his scars, his heart that no longer knew fear as it should.

He turned with a slow menace, an animal’s snarl curling on his lips. The whip cracked through the air, cutting dangerously across his cheek, and Azram lunged. The braided leather cut into his hands, tore into his weathered skin and into the soft, supple flesh as he wrenched it tight around the tormentor’s neck. Jagged, unkempt nails scratched over his wrists, the body beneath him bucking in a futile attempt to free itself. Azram’s knee dug into the arm it had pinned to the ground, feeling its desperate wrenching as it aimed for the knife at its belt.

“You’re lucky, you know,” Azram told him with a calm, polite smile. “Most demons would torture you much longer than this.” A thought occurred to him, and he gave a slight laugh. “Though I suspect you’re about to find out all about that.”

In time, the light went out of his eyes, and the body ceased its struggling and feeble twitching.

The relief was astounding. A laugh bubbled in his throat, shaking through his shoulders before Azram gave a pleasant sigh.

Hizkiah wanted to thank him, wanted to pray, wanted to weep with joy and horror, but could do nothing but slowly sink into a comforting and well-deserved darkness.

“I won’t be long,” Azram assured him as Hizkiah began to succumb to a deep slumber. “I can’t promise it’ll be better when you wake, but it won’t be this.”

He staggered to his feet and snapped his fingers. The anger that had welcomed him burned like a star in his chest, anchoring him as he reached for infernal power that was no more inherent to this body than Azram himself. The wounds knit themselves closed, scabs turning to scars then smoothing over into clean, unmarred skin. Azram gave a slow roll of his shoulders, feeling the aching entrapment of his wings which were impossible to summon in this body.

He rifled quickly through Hizkiah’s memories to determine the way to Nazareth, and without looking behind him, he began to walk.

* * *

Hizkiah remained ‘asleep’ for lack of a better word. But even in the depths of his slumber, his soul struggled with the presence inside him. The fury returned in flashes, calling to the rage inside Azram. It overwhelmed him, dragging him to dark depths, drowning his better judgement at the worst times. The world dulled around him, going hazy and unfocused save for the people who seemed suddenly brighter, sharper, and more dangerous. It was easy to throw himself at them, struggling to protect himself from a threat half-perceived.

Once, in the middle of town, they managed to chain him down, and Azram tore the links apart with brutal strength before fleeing to the nearby hills in an attempt to rest his straining sanity.

Pain helped but never enough. He healed the bloodied wounds, vanishing evidence from the nearby stones with a heavy sigh, and the world spun around him. Hours passed in the blink of an eye before he managed to break through to the surface again.

The longer he was alone, the easier it was to remain in control, but when he ventured down to Gergesa for food and drink, the rage would roar to life anew.

Untenable — that’s what it was. Eventually, Hizkiah’s body would give out, but the next human host would fare no better, and he didn’t dare to return to Lucifer in disgrace to beg for a body of his own. He would simply have to hop to another one when the time came, and until then, Hizkiah could sleep a little while longer.

So could he. Azram didn’t want to, certainly; he’d be utterly defenseless. But the body was human, fragile — dying, as always — and he had struggled against it for days, now, without giving in. One moment, he was watching the moonlight glimmer off the nearby Sea of Galilee, and in the next, his eyes slipped closed. He fell alone through ages and memories, swallowed up, not by dreams but by visions of thousands of years that slipped through his hands like grains of sand.

A cool hand rested against his burning head, and when Azram’s eyes opened, he was _seen_ in that familiar way that churned through him and made him want to spit venom and bile, expelling all cruelty as if it wasn’t forever a permanent part of him.

“What is your name?” Jesus asked with all kindness.

For a moment, all Azram could think was that Jesus _must_ know. How often had Corvai said it when they were occupants of the same stable? Clarity took precious seconds when he lost the element of surprise, when he could have possibly revolted against the hands that lay gently upon him.

“Profane creature, forsaken child of God our Father — what is your name?”

Azram sneered, but he could feel the words crowding his throat, compelled unwillingly from his lips. No different, really, than when Lucifer forced him to speak, but luckily, he could often choose his words. He forced a smile. “I am Legion, an army and the Kingdom it serves.”

“Can an army be made of only one? Or a kingdom?”

Azram bared his teeth, smiling wider. “I can assure you, we are many, and we are _everywhere_. We’ve been waiting for you.”

But when he tried to lunge, his muscles refused to move. They tensed and ached, but they would not obey him beyond that. The hand on his forehead felt colder, like a breeze in the middle of summer or the first rain cascading on him at the walls of Eden or like Lucifer when he was pretending to be gentle. Azram’s smile fell away, and it was only his pride that kept him from snarling like a trapped animal.

“Go. Return your wretchedness to the depths of Hell where it is welcome.”

Azram barked a single, desperate laugh before power reached into him. It found where Hizkiah’s anger had met his own, their thorny vines entwined, and it simply pulled them apart as if there were no barbs to impede it and as if the two had never been one.

He shattered. The world existed only in fragments, flashes that passed before he could do more than take note of them. Time broke into meaningless and immeasurable chaos. His senses scattered. Flies buzzed, water lapped against the shore. Rocks scraped under his hooves, flesh tore open, bodies pressed tightly together. He was airborne. He was crushed. He was safe and in danger, fragile but unwieldy. He could taste blood and then water. The instant water flowed over one of his tongues, Azram began to swallow. The more mouths he found, the more he could drink, could breathe, pushing into the Sea.

Finally, he felt the faintest sense of relief, so he opened up to it again and again, pushing deeper into the water.

The fragments became more solid, less panicked. He could feel, vaguely, _hundreds_ of bodies, each with its own chaotic sense of the world around it. Jesus had cast him out of Hizkiah, but he hadn’t aimed Azram at a single target. Instead, he’d somehow driven Azram into every animal standing between them and the Sea of Galilee. Each one had its own chaotic sense of being, its own sights and smells, its own method of movement, and Azram aimed all of them for the Sea.

He was drowning them, and with every body he lost, some amount of clarity returned. Controlling several hundred bodies had strained his mind to breaking, and he sought the most immediate remedy by killing them. Air heaved into lungs that soon flooded with water, and those that couldn’t drown were driven down to the ground to be crushed.

Azram was soon able to wind the pieces of himself back in, pooling them into a single body to be sorted and dealt with once he could spare the time and attention for it.

First, though — he had something to take care of.

Further up the hills, he could see Jesus and Hizkiah. He could hear their voices. He turned to scale the rocky hillside, but his hooves slid inelegantly over the rocks. He snorted in surprise, and it came out deeper, heavier than Azram was used to as his hefty body fell sideways. He picked himself up, ears pricked and snout twitching. Azram tossed his head in agitation, but froze suddenly at the strange feeling of weightlessness.

Tentatively, he lifted his head to look at the Sea of Galilee and felt his borrowed heart pound harder at the sight of a hundred pigs bobbing lifelessly in the water.

Azram was not _proud_ of the noise that followed. It was a high-pitched thing, a near-frightened and certainly-angry squeal that echoed sharply off the rocks. Now that he was aware of the shape he wore, Azram could feel it in every minute movement: every twitch, every breath, the way blood pumped through its veins. He could feel the absence of multiple stomachs like a tangible loss, and his body felt too exposed, too raw without its wool.

Azram had been forced into many different human and celestial configurations over the millennia. He had never worn another animal like this, and the unwanted strangeness of it shook him. He could practically feel the nearness of the water, could imagine the weight in his lungs as he took more and more—

No. Failure wasn’t an option. He’d spent so long with such absolute confidence that he could succeed where the other demons failed. If he disappointed Lucifer now… It didn’t bear imagining.

This body, as distasteful as it was, could still do what he needed it to. He shook his head, ears flopping slightly, and he took a step away from the Sea, turning his eyes up the hills again. His pace was slow, lumbering, but he found the paths upward with slow, steady, stubborn determination. Occasionally, his hooves would slip, body sliding dangerously back down and threatening to give way, but Azram plowed onward and up until he came, at last, level with the cave he’d hidden in while in Hizkiah’s body.

The teeth in his mouth would be capable of tearing flesh from bone. The weight of his body could hold a victim down. He had seen the way shepherds feared pigs, and he had seen the reasons why. 

But Jesus was neither oblivious nor gearing up to fight. He sat alone atop a large rock, the wind catching in his dark hair as he looked upward into an overcast sky from where muted light filtered onto the world below. A hand — a carpenter’s hand, rough with years of work, scarred from splinters and still scabbed from mishandled nails — patted the side of the rock almost idly, and Azram eyed him with distrust.

Jesus spoke softly, face still turned towards the heavens. “I won’t harm you.”

Azram took a startled step back and snorted in disbelief. Jesus, for all that he might be divine, was also _human_. He couldn’t harm Azram more than a gnat might harm Jesus himself. Jesus smiled, deceptively bright and warm, basking in something that Azram longed to steal for himself, to gather and jealously guard after it had been taken away.

He stepped forward, head down as he clung to the rage that warmed in his chest.

Jesus finally looked at him, looked _into_ him, and the same force that stalled him every time before was trying to root his hooves to the ground.

“You can’t harm me,” Jesus said with such unwavering confidence, such misplaced faith that the anger itself freed Azram from its spell. He had thought the same; he had believed, and he had been cast out, forsaken for it. Step by step, he forced himself forward, drawing nearer. The pig’s heart beat harder, struggling like a fly caught in a web. Jesus reached out his hand, and Azram lashed out. He could taste the salt of Jesus’s sweat, the metallic tang of his blood; Azram could _feel_ the shift of his bones as his teeth bore down. He saw the pain behind Jesus’s eyes, and his jaws opened of their own accord, freeing Their son.

Jesus passed his fingers over the bleeding wounds, and before Azram’s eyes, they vanished as if they’d never been, bruises blooming on his skin only to vanish seconds later.

“It is my Father’s will,” he explained in a way that sounded almost… apologetic.

Azram snorted again, struck a hoof against the ground, and opened his mouth. He wasn’t entirely sure what noise was supposed to come out, but it certainly shouldn’t have been the wavering bleat of a disgruntled sheep.

It startled them both. The pig’s throat scraped over the noise, raw and painful, and Jesus jumped, eyes widening. For the first time since he was a babe, Azram saw something mortal in him, something unsure, something… surprised. It reminded him of the orphaned musician with her drum, the way she’d enthralled him that way kings had failed.

He could feel the softness beneath the shell of his heart, bleeding nostalgia and damned fondness, weakening him, bending his will like a willow’s branch. The despair was immediate and cold, and he almost wished to be scattered again among so many bodies that he could never hope to pull himself together.

“Oh,” Jesus breathed. “I’m so sorry.”

Fingers slid soft and careful over his brow. The power that touched him was certainly a miracle, but it didn’t invade and force. Instead, it brushed over him as softly as a butterfly’s wing, and Azram was urged from the pig’s body. He freed himself effortlessly, and the gentle flutters swept over him with the same fragility of a mortal heart. His soul settled into a form it knew, and it pulled at the world around it, creating a body from the dust as Adam’s had been. The weight of Jesus’s blessing settled in Azram’s chest, blazing with the glory of a miracle given to him.

He sighed, first, stretching his fingers and toes. His wings spread open wide, each feather feeling the rush of the wind before he tucked them in and put them away. Azram’s eyes opened to find Jesus’s lingering on his right side, and a foul taste bled into his mouth. He hadn’t asked for pity, for mercy, and he most certainly didn’t _want_ them. “It’s generally unwise to arm your enemy.”

Jesus’s brow furrowed for a moment, and he asked softly: “Are we enemies?”

“Probably a question you should ask Them.” He nodded upwards with a quick jerk.

“I’m asking you.” There was an unfortunate earnestness, something innocent and soft that wrenched at Azram’s stomach.

The last being he’d seen with a look like that… “Of course we are. Your ‘Father’ decided that several thousand years ago when They made demons in the first place.”

Jesus nodded, glancing out at the Sea again with a new tightness around his eyes. “Only…” Azram looked at him sharply. Jesus continued, musing, “Only… you didn’t hurt him.”

“What?” he demanded.

“Hizkiah. When the people of Gergesa said he was possessed, I—” His lips tugged into the vaguest frown, and he looked to Azram, rich, dark eyes warm as they met his own. “I’ve seen people possessed. I expected him to look like that: torn skin and sharp-boned. Starving for… for kindness, as much as food.” Jesus’s expression softened. “If you didn’t _feel_ like a demon, I wouldn’t have known.”

Azram forced a light laugh. “I took care of the body I needed so I could kill you. Is that it?”

No matter how gently one spoke, it didn’t soften the accusation: “It wasn’t just the body. Was it?”

A lump settled in his throat; Azram swallowed around it. “Regardless. I’m afraid I can’t go back while you’re still walking around up here. I need you to die, and you need me not to kill you. We’re diametrically opposed.”

Of all the things in all the world Jesus could have said, Azram was least prepared for a tired confession: “Only for a little while longer.”

Of all the things Azram could have rebuked and argued against, that he could have railed with the entirety of himself until an untimely discorporation, that alone stayed him. There was a gentle desperation, a quiet loneliness in Jesus’s voice, in the shallow lines of his face, and Azram found himself, for once, with nothing to say.


	20. the tête-à-tête.

A few decades — that had been the deal Corvai made with him the night Jesus had been born. A few decades where Azram, bound by a demonic contract, could not interfere in the life of Their son. From the moment Jesus had been brought into the world, his days had been precisely numbered, counting down to the inevitable, ineffable end.

How had Corvai possessed any righteous fury in Jerusalem? How had they, without any sense of irony, without acknowledging the inherent hypocrisy, decided that several more years made Heaven’s plan to kill Their child acceptable?

How had Azram let himself believe that Corvai was any different from the rest of them? Angels had all been created with a specific purpose, a grand design. Hearts and minds had been something they’d picked up along the way. Some had Fallen for it, but when given the chance, they all reverted to obedient servants waiting for orders.

For three-thousand years, he’d believed… He’d believed in _anything_, and that had been the first, crucial mistake. How stupid he’d been, how naive.

They climbed out of the hills, away from the Sea. Every step felt like a new condemnation, proof of his ongoing failure, but his jaws still ached from where they’d been forcefully pried open by some force stronger than he. He could have railed against it and struggled, but he’d end up in the courtroom like every other disgraced demon, standing before the Lord of Hell and recounting his failures.

“How long?” Azram asked as they joined with the road to Gergesa. He folded his hands at the small of his back, casting a suspicious glance skyward. The angels must be on their way, and then— “How long until I’m meant to kill you?”

It was a futile hope that somewhere in God’s Great, Ineffable Plan it might be written that Azram would be the one to kill Jesus. It was the last bit of hope he could possibly have, and the irony soured on his tongue.

“I…” Jesus trailed. “I don’t know that it’s supposed to be _you_.” Azram ground his teeth together with a heavy exhale. Jesus continued, “I don’t know the day. Not yet. But…”

“But you _know_.”

From the corner of his eye, he could see Jesus’s sad smile and the way he looked at the road ahead of him and nowhere else. “Eight years.”

Azram felt the air empty from his lungs. The world spun desperately under his feet. Eight years was too long — not for Jesus, of course, not for any mortal human, but Satan was waiting below. He’d be all-too happy to sharpen his fangs on Azram’s failure, to use it to keep him caged forevermore. Desperation clawed its way up his spine, leaving trails of fire in its wake, and he began to turn the entire situation over in his head, searching for cracks, for weaknesses, for any chance he had of acting sooner.

When he spoke, it was unrelentingly cold: “I see.”

Without hesitation, Jesus offered, “You’re welcome to stay with me until then.”

Azram chuckled stiffly. “Somehow, I think your guardian angels might disapprove.”

“Why would they?” There was a certain steel to his voice. When Azram finally looked to him, brow pinched with a frown, Jesus met his gaze. For the first time, when Jesus looked at him, Azram did not feel the unbearable weight of his attention: the pressure that tried to expel every vile thing that had become a part of his makeup several thousand years ago. “Do they question my resolve? Can I not be trusted?”

Azram rolled his shoulders. “You’re a human with free will in the company of a demon. Of course you can’t.”

“And what good is free will if it can’t be exercised?”

Despite himself, despite a distant pang in his chest and the memories that accompanied it, Azram smiled. “You should ask your Father sometime. I’m sure They could enlighten you.” Then, a thought occurred. “You’ve spoken to Them.”

“Daily,” Jesus said.

“No, no — not prayer. You’ve _heard_ Them speak to you?”

“Yes.”

It ached immediately. That single word ripped and tore into him, burrowing into the cavern of his chest. His pulse jumped, a dull roar thumping through his ears as long-contained anger flared to life and faded in less than a blink. It occurred to him that it could be Gabriel or the Metatron acting in Their stead, but… it wasn’t. He was certain beyond all reason that it wasn’t. After four-thousand years of silence, They’d spoken to someone, and it wasn’t him. It would never be him again.

In the beginning, before Earth, before Hell, before demons and angels, there was God and there was the Word, and it was no longer meant for his ears.

“Legion?”

It took Azram too long to respond, lost in thoughts, memories, and pain. “Hm?” he managed finally, registering all-too late that Jesus was talking to him.

Jesus took a steadying breath, and when he spoke, there was power behind it. “I tell you this: none shall harm you at my side.” The forces of the universe shifted, a new law etched into the bones of it. The safety settled heavily on Azram’s shoulders, a condemning, suffocating weight.

He noted dryly, “The Devil’s not going to like that.”

Softly, Jesus said, “You could leave.”

He could, he supposed, but where would he go? Anything beyond Their son’s company was dangerous territory where Lucifer could send demons to make him account for his inaction. Hiding in Jesus’s shadow wouldn’t do him any favors, either, but it would delay the inevitable return to Hell and the suffering that awaited him. It gave him time to get his ducks in a row. Come up with a plan to circumvent Jesus’s protections or how to spin his delayed demise as a win for Hell.

It was the only option he had.

“If you’re hoping to reform me, I’m afraid you’re sadly mistaken.”

“How could I hope to improve on what God has made?”

Azram rolled his eyes with a sneer and pointedly ignored the smile at his side.

### 28 AD

Jesus made friends everywhere he went. There was a natural magnetism, a certain air that drew other humans to him. Jesus didn’t rely on the power of his blessing or the miracles he kept hidden on the back of his tongue, behind the bright shine of his smile. He simply… existed, and that was enough.

Humans tended to overlook Azram, and no one from either side came to remove him. It could have been peaceful if he could trust it. The inability to sense other celestial beings only made him more certain that he wasn’t alone. Anyone who looked directly at him for longer than a blink was an enemy waiting for him to step too far from the source of his relative safety. 

They had time which was damning enough in its own right. Time that he used to tell Jesus his name, time enough to realize that he couldn’t possibly do any physical harm before he was allowed. Azram watched Jesus grow from a cautious student to where he was now, ready to take his first step as a fledgling teacher. Azram had long enough to realize that there was a third option independent of Heaven and Hell, waiting for him and his companion to take hold of it.

But this wasn’t the time.

Today, they were part of a crowd that stretched along the banks of the river of Jordan, watching the lone figure who stood in the shallows. His words were like thunder, a storm rolling over the gathered congregation. The hair on Azram’s nape prickled, feeling some innate enchantment sweeping over the listeners. “He enthralls them,” Azram muttered.

“He was foretold, the same as I was,” Jesus murmured, decidedly warm as he looked over his kinsman. “By the same angel.” Almost as an afterthought, he added, “Supposedly.” He tried, when he remembered, to separate fact from fiction.

Dryly, “It’s difficult to mistake Gabriel for anyone else.” Yet, a frown tugged on his lips. “But he’s not… ‘supposedly’ like you?” It would surprise him if Heaven had prepared a back-up plan, but he wouldn’t rule it out completely. After all, however blessed they were, humans could be so fragile.

“No. As human as anyone else here.”

“And yet they listen.”

“They want to learn.”

Azram eyed Jesus with a scowl but didn’t bother to correct him. They had a few fundamental disagreements on which neither would budge, and this particular issue went all the way back to Eden. Azram had watched over the first humans, had known them, but Jesus was certain that he understood their motives better. He claimed that humans were _meant_ to question, to search for answers, that the Serpent had offered knowledge rather than a forbidden fruit.

Azram hadn’t told Jesus how well acquainted he was with the Serpent’s particular methods of temptation. Perhaps that was why Jesus held onto his surplus of unwarranted faith in humanity.

John’s voice faded, and there was a low murmur among the crowd. Jesus took a steadying breath and smiled. “Stay hidden. John wouldn’t understand.”

Azram wondered what on Earth Jesus thought might befall him if he was found to be in the company of a demon, but before he could ask, Jesus straightened, and when he spoke, his voice was soothing but strong. It reminded Azram of the rain. “I would be baptized at your hands and my soul washed clean.”

The crowds parted as Moses had once parted the seas, and the two men beheld one another with suffocating fondness. Azram excused himself from the crowd, easing out of the cluster of bodies and into the open. He took refuge in the dappled shade of a tree, eyes scanning the crowd as he always did. Corvai had never been far from Jesus’s side when Azram had been stuck bodiless in Hell, but Azram hadn’t seen any signs of them since returning. Their last meeting in Jerusalem, that accidental run-in only solidified his certainty that they were nearby, watching and waiting for the chance that had been denied to them by Jesus’s unfounded mercy.

Radiant light cascaded from a hole in the sky, and the voice of the Metatron rolled over the countryside, unintelligible to his shattered soul.

“Lovely,” he muttered sourly, ignoring the undeniable presence of the Archangel.

He wasn’t alone. He couldn’t be.

So where, exactly, were they hiding?

When the crowd began to disperse hours later, Jesus did not come to meet him alone. Trailing behind him was another man, both of them soaked from the river. Bright-eyed and eager, without hesitation, Jesus spoke, “Andrew, this is Azram. Azram, Andrew has been called to follow me. As you have.”

Azram managed the barest hint of a smile. “Charmed, I’m sure.”

It was as much an accusation as idle pleasantry.

* * *

Andrew was the first, but he wasn’t alone for long. Days later, where the Sea of Galilee fed into the river Jordan, Peter stepped from his fishing skiff onto dry land, compelled beyond words, beyond understanding to Jesus’s side. The next day, they met another John and his brother James. They abandoned their fishing nets mid-repair and their father who demanded their obedience, called by kindness, by the enormity of Jesus’s faith and love in them.

Azram had once known what it was to be beloved. He could hardly blame them for succumbing to that intoxicating warmth.

For the first time in his expansive life, the humans around him called him by his name. There was an unwanted familiarity there, a certain nearness that he could have done well enough without. But they embraced him as one of their own readily and without hesitation.

Others listened to Jesus speak; they opened their lives to him. Some traveled at his side, but others stayed where they had been planted, spreading Jesus’s teachings in their community.

In Gergesa, they stayed at the home of Hizkiah. He didn’t recognize Azram, but how could he? All he had known was their shared fury, the explosion where they had met and become one, and the blood Azram had put on his hands of which he’d been graciously, miraculously absolved. By that time, there were nine of them, gathered and sleeping on whatever flat stretch of floor they could claim. Hizkiah offered Jesus his bed, but Jesus refused. He stayed awake long into the night, speaking in a low voice to whoever was awake to listen.

In the dead of night, when everyone else but Azram was asleep, Jesus would pray.

Azram’s skin crawled with sick anticipation, tension tightening down his spine and across the width of his shoulders. He felt as wild as lightning and as sharp as a blade, waiting for the sky to crack open, for judgement to fall on him. If not God Themself, then surely an Archangel, surely _Corvai_ if nothing else—

Yet, every night, the feeling passed, and Jesus would fall asleep as easily as he had in the manger, silent and safe.

* * *

They numbered more than a dozen by the time they made it to Bethlehem.

A wave of unwanted nostalgia stole over him as he looked upon the walls, the hills, as he walked the road that had once brought him and his shepherds to an overcrowded city in search of a child. How near here had he been when he had been fooled, when he had shown his fickle allegiance? His mouth warmed, a forgotten taste lying heavy on his tongue.

The foul mood only worsened as the night dragged on. The ease with which they found inns to house them, the ghosts that haunted him down familiar streets and alleyways, the damned urge to walk to the stable and disappear into the lie he’d foolishly allowed himself to believe — all of it turned him rotten and sour.

“Azram,” Jesus said when he returned late into the night. His kindness felt like a weapon, flaying Azram to pieces anew with each forsaken syllable. “You strayed.”

“Yet I returned.” Then, “I didn’t think I needed to be quite literally at your side.”

“You don’t. But you were missed.”

“I doubt that.” He was known, but he made a point not to get too close to anyone, fading from their notice whenever they weren’t paying attention. If anyone realized he hadn’t been there as they settled into their rooms, they likely forgot in the next breath.

Jesus smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I think we need to talk.”

Azram watched him carefully, managing the barest hint of a smile in return. “Then talk.”

Jesus shook his head slowly. “Not as we are.” He clasped his rough hands in his lap, glancing down at them for a moment before he steeled himself and met Azram’s eyes again, determined. “Tomorrow, I go alone into the wilderness for forty days and nights. I must contend with whatever the Devil wishes to throw at me.”

“Ah,” he said stiffly, the last traces of his smile falling away.

“Have you not wished to speak to me alone?”

“I have.” He attempted again, his face tightening, but his lips barely twitched upwards before they fell. His hands curled into weak fists, nails biting at the meat of his palms. “And you are meant to resist?”

“I am meant to hear you out. To understand.”

“You can’t possibly.”

“Maybe so. But I’ll try.”

* * *

The others agreed to go on to Jerusalem to wait until Jesus returned. They wouldn’t notice Azram’s absence for more than moments at a time. He felt their awareness slide off of him moments after their teacher turned his back to them, walking with a staff in hand towards the not-too distant desert and the craggy mountains.

As the disciples and apostles turned towards their own destination, Azram took the first steps towards his own. Bethlehem still lingered in the distance as he started to release the heavy-handed control he had over his appearance. His pupils slanted into rectangles, horns poking out of his curls before they grew and wound around his now-soft ears. He left the pretense of humanity behind — as Jesus said, they could not talk as they had before. He couldn’t continue to wear the guise of an innocent human.

For this to be an honest, _real_ conversation, he needed to be the whole of himself, as terrible as it was.

Rather than going immediately to Jesus, Azram let him wander, let him settle into the cold emptiness of being truly alone. Only when the sun began to set did he stalk closer to where Their son had set up his camp. A tame fire flickered before him, smoke catching in the dry wind, and it was then that Azram saw that he hadn’t yet begun to prepare his food.

A low hum shivered through the ground, the rocks, the sparse brush. The flames dwindled, and in a flicker of dying light, Azram appeared, sitting on a rock across from Jesus. As the flames turned to smoldering smoke, a multitude of eyes blinked open and wings spread behind him. The debris of a shattered wheel caught the last spark of light from the fire, glinting as it threw it off into the night and left them alone together.

“Have you nothing to eat, my dear?”

He could hear the gentle smile in Jesus’s voice, “The Lord will provide.”

“Perhaps you should endeavor to provide for yourself, hm?”

It wasn’t a proper temptation, not really. After all, they were both aware of the apparent rules that governed Jesus’s vulnerability. Azram wouldn’t have been surprised to find that Jesus _couldn’t_ starve despite being supposedly as human as he was divine.

Despite the lull of his voice, the deliberate (if half-hearted) provocation, Jesus laughed, and by the light of the stars, Azram could see his smile.

“I’m hardly joking.”

“I know.” Then, “Don’t worry about me.”

“I’m a _demon_. I don’t worry about humans.”

Jesus didn’t argue with him, but he couldn’t stop himself from smiling. Azram clicked his tongue in irritation before swallowing it down to ask: “When would you like me to begin?”

“When you’re ready.”

* * *

Azram had time. Not much of it, really, in the grand scheme of things, but he’d never needed much to prepare. If Hell had taught him nothing else, it had taught him to think on his feet. Yet, he took precious days. He walked at Jesus’s side, often saying nothing of consequence as they traversed the rocky terrain together.

Jesus fasted, allowing himself a meager meal plucked from the aether every other day after the sun set, and his spirit quickly became subdued. He was waiting for Azram to take the first step, yes, but he was also changing. He embraced his hardships with minimal complaints, and he invited more, allowing them to settle into his soul, weighing on him like a cloak.

It reminded Azram vaguely of Falling. There was no hole in the ground, no physical displacement, but he remembered the pit of boiling sulfur that swallowed him whole, pulling him deeper as every part of his celestial soul was broken apart and refitted together, jagged and unstable, forged into this new forsaken shape.

Jesus hadn’t been created to carry that kind of weight, and it took its toll on him. Yet, he smiled. He laughed. He pretended as though nothing was wrong.

Azram would have waited longer, would have honed his argument to the finest edge, but the aggravation of watching Jesus starve himself got to him first. One moment, they stood on the edge of a ravine in the Judaean Mountains just as the sun passed overhead, and in the next, his fingers tightened around Jesus’s wrist. They fell eastward together; the sun and desert fell away to the west, over the horizon. The sky blazed with a glorious sunset then fell away to a soft twilight as they finally came to a stop in a village far, far from where they’d left.

Jesus, dazed, glanced around, eyes widening at the sight of people the likes of which he’d never seen.

Azram had been all over the world in brief flashes. It was the nature of the job: wherever there was Heavenly meddling, Hell needed to interfere. He hadn’t been to this corner of the world in a long time; a lot had changed. He felt the faintest echo of the desire to _learn_, to absorb what made this different from any other place on Earth. There were no walls and shelves of scrolls as there had been in Alexandria’s Library, but there was just as much information stored here in these simple houses, in their fishing nets, in the stories these people passed down around their fires at night.

Unfortunately, his irritation with Jesus overrode his curiosity.

“Where are we?” Jesus asked.

“We are wherever the sun has set,” Azram said as he banished his demonic tells. “You can break your fast and eat something of substance before we go back.”

“And if I refuse?”

Azram smiled brightly, and felt the faintest hint of satisfaction as Jesus recoiled. “Then I suspect we’ll need to learn the native tongue sooner rather than later — I rather doubt anyone here speaks Aramaic.” He stepped closer, tone light and kind: “You are no good to your people or to Them if you are half-starved and half-dead. I’ve followed your rules to the letter.”

“And gone against the intent of it all.”

“You knew what I was when you invited me into your company, when you told me to accompany you into the wilds.” A slight, false frown. “If you wanted an angel, instead, you should have prayed for one.” He leaned back out of Jesus’s space, folding his hands at his back as he took a step away. “You still can, you know. They would come, wouldn’t they? Set you nicely back on the straight and narrow?”

Jesus frowned at him for a long moment, stretched longer by an unbearable silence. “You’re angry.”

“Am I.”

“Why?”

His face twitched, a sneer curling along his lips before he forced it away, wiping all traces of the expression off. “Because you are no good to _me_ if you die before your time.”

Jesus’s dark eyes flinched, a wounded look passing through them as swiftly as seconds passed. A blink, and it vanished, replaced with something like determination. He scoffed with a slight smile. “What argument could I make to deter you?”

It took time to negotiate with the locals — the language barrier really was an issue until it occurred to Azram to use a miracle to understand their language and speak it. Then, the two found themselves seated indoors, picking through rice and fish. Once Jesus succumbed to the hunger plaguing him and allowed himself to really eat, Azram’s spine seemed to loosen and the anger eased. It felt easier to breathe though he, of course, never _needed_ to.

“I won’t thank you,” Jesus said as they returned to the desert barely more than an hour after they’d left.

He didn’t have to. There was gratitude in his voice, in the softness of his eyes.

“Good.” Azram needlessly straightened his own robes, allowing his horns to grow and his wings to unfold. Then, before he could choke on his own cowardice: “Tonight. Do be prepared.”

He vanished several miles away to give them both time to fortify themselves.


	21. the sacrifice.

Soft dusk swept over the land, cool shadows stretching, grasping, spreading the dark. Azram perched on the edge of the ravine far away from where he’d left Jesus, staring down at the dark crags below. How easy it would be to fall and fall, crashing into the rocks at the bottom. How easy it would be to close the earth in around him, choosing the solace of the lonely dark that he had once dreaded beyond measure.

Forty years hadn’t been that long, had it? Yet he had begged for an exit, had thrown himself into Lucifer’s waiting jaws without hesitation. Muted loathing burned acidic in the back of his throat.

By the time the stars started glimmering and the last sliver of sun disappeared over the mountains, Azram was no more ready than he had been, but he needed to stop dragging his feet. He smoothed out his robes, the pale, faded color darkening to an empty, starless night sky. He took a single step and flashed out of sight, reappearing steps away from the circle of light around Jesus’s campfire.

He lifted his head, dark eyes catching the glow of the fire, something fierce kindling in their depths.

Azram strode forward to the edge of the light. He spoke without theatrics, without using any of his power to twist the world around them. The words echoed plainly around the small valley, carrying down into the nearby ravine: “Are you really Their son?”

“Are we not all children of God?”

In an instant, the meager fire became an inferno and consumed all of its kindling. Around them, rocks shattered, splinters scattering outward from the epicenter of fury that was Azram.

He gave a humorless scoff, stepping forward to the edge of the unbearable flame. The heat lashed against his skin, the burns healing as quickly as they were made. The flames coiled through his clothes, searching, it seemed, for any place where it could hurt him. How could they hope to touch him? He had been subsumed by Lucifer’s brilliance countless times. Uriel’s divine flame had ripped through his flesh, and he had survived and healed. The brand between his shoulders shouldn’t have been there on this body that Jesus had given to him, yet it burned with the flex of his back, as extant as his shriveled, useless wing.

Azram took a deep breath, and he felt the hellfire crawl down into his lungs, searing him from the inside out.

When he spoke, smoke drifted from his lips. “If I am, you should consider me a cautionary tale.” The excess heat burned inside of him, fanning the flames of righteous indignation that had been his sole reliable companion for millennia. “I am what happens when Their love, Their _infinite_ patience runs dry. If it can happen to me, what on Earth is protecting you?”

Softly, “Nothing.”

It didn’t feel like a revelation. It wasn’t as though he’d pried particularly deeply, and he hadn’t even needed to present a compelling case for his own innocence.

He realized all-too late that Jesus knew. He had known for the entirety of his adult life that God was capricious, uncaring, and cruel. So many humans before him had bent themselves to God’s will. They faced nigh-insurmountable challenges, dragged through by the skin of their teeth, and they prayed for deliverance from the one who had chosen to torment them. They never seemed to realize that the source of their salvation was also the source of their misery.

Finally, one had.

Something terrible and heavy wound around Azram’s heart, squeezing until every desperate throb ached and echoed through the hollow void within him.

“Then walk away.”

Jesus sighed, “I can’t.”

“Actually,” Azram said, “I think you’ll find that you _can_. You’re human. One of the benefits thereof is free will.”

“I have a responsibility.”

Azram scoffed with another puff of smoke. “You have power. You are not beholden to the forces that gave it to you.”

Jesus glanced up from where he sat, eyes shadowed. “Are you?”

Another ripple surged outward, twisting deep furrows through the ground. A cascade of earth crashed into the ravine as it shook loose from the walls. “Of course,” he said, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice. “I am currently under your protection for that precise reason, am I not?”

“Then you understand.”

“I’m afraid I don’t.” Azram glanced upwards towards the stars, feeling that long-familiar ache, the desire to run and hide. He could no longer pick Corvai’s star out of the billions that scattered in the night sky. “This world was not made for the likes of me. Freedom is not something given to angel stock, nor is it something we can take for ourselves.”

He could feel the _hope_ in Jesus’s voice, “Have you tried?”

“No.” Azram tipped his head back down with the barest hint of a smile. “I _can’t_. The rules that govern us were written by your so-called Father. None of us — not even Satan himself — can unwrite them. When we were cast out, we were anchored to Hell. When this body is destroyed—”

“If,” Jesus corrected.

Azram pressed on: “Whatever we have that might resemble a soul will be pulled to Hell and reassembled. Any freedom I might have claimed would be gone in an instant, and Hell would have an eternity to remind me that what I am is forsaken.”

The pity in Jesus’s eyes was stifling, yet something burned within him. “If your body couldn’t be destroyed, then…?”

“You really aren’t paying attention,” Azram seethed. “You’ve been given quite a bit of power, and you aren’t bound by our rules. You, when you die, will go to wherever it’s decided that you belong.”

“My Father’s Kingdom.”

“And what about your own?” Jesus blinked, confusion knitting his brow, and Azram eased his voice to something lower, something more intimate as he sat on the other side of the smoldering fire. “Earth belongs to no one. It can’t belong to Heaven or Hell until Armageddon and the War that should follow. But you— My dear, _because_ you are a human with the powers you have, you could change that. All of this would bend to your will, to your word. All you have to do is speak it.”

A deep sadness etched into Jesus’s face, and his shoulders slumped. “I can’t,” he repeated softly.

“I’m quite sure that you can.”

“To give you refuge?”

Azram grimaced. “You’d be saving humanity. From angels, from demons, from Them. Must I— Must I be entirely selfless in that?”

He hadn’t prayed for deliverance in thousands of years. Then, in thousands of years, there hadn’t been a chance that he might be heard or answered.

“And when I die?”

“You needn’t.”

“The time and day of my death is written.”

“You alone have the power to change that.”

Jesus closed his eyes. “I can’t.”

“You keep saying, but—”

“No, Azram.” Jesus sighed again, drawing his knees up to his chest so his arms could curl around them. A breath shivered through him, rasping in his lungs. “If I did this, I’d be closing the Gates of Heaven to all of humanity forever.”

Almost gently, he reminded, “The Gates to Hell as well.”

Jesus smiled an exhausted, bone-weary smile before he ducked his head, pressing it against his knees. “It isn’t my place to decide what’s best for the rest of the world, for all people forever. I— I don’t want to be a King, not of my people, not of all mankind, not of Earth.”

There was a terrible silence. The world around Azram shook as anger clawed its way up to his chest. What had Jesus said when he’d explained this little outing? Contend with whatever the Devil wished to throw at him? Azram could push the idea forward, plant the seed in Jesus’s mind and let it blossom and bloom on its own. It might turn him cruel, might make him desire more of the divine power he’d already been given. A proper temptation — wasn’t that his _job_? He could hardly be blamed for succumbing to his true nature.

He could hardly be blamed for wanting.

“I didn’t ask for this.” It was such a soft, broken thing, barely a breath, not even a prayer. Jesus’s hands curled into weak fists as the first sob of many wracked through his body.

It took time to expunge a lifetime of sorrow and stress. Hours passed, the moon swinging overhead. Azram moved to Jesus’s side and silently folded his left wing over him. It wouldn’t do anything — he knew that. Heaven would see what it wanted to see as it always had. But… it was all he could do.

Finally, with a miserable sniffle and tear-stained cheeks, Jesus uncurled. He looked so young, so small in comparison to the destiny that he had been forced to carry. “I’m sorry,” he breathed, wiping at his eyes.

The words came easily to him in spite of everything. “You are forgiven.”

* * *

“Where are we, now?”

It seemed like the least he could do. After all, if Jesus was to die for them, shouldn’t he get to see the wonders of the world he was supposed to save? It wouldn’t make his burden easier to bear. Far from it — showing him what all could be lost would only reinforce the need to follow his predetermined path. But it was all that Azram could give him, and it kept Jesus from starving himself as his sense of time became increasingly warped by their travels.

“I believe this is called Cholula.”

Jesus smiled and attempted to feign disapproval: “And what do they eat here?”

“You know, I haven’t the foggiest.” An offer, as kind as he could be: “Shall we find out?”

* * *

Their last night together in the wastelands, Azram chose to lighten the somber mood by picking at a specific grievance. “I don’t appreciate you telling them my name.”

Jesus startled. “What?”

“My name. There’s an inconvenient amount of power in that. If anyone realized what I am, they could use it to summon me, bind me, expel me, and so on.”

“I…” Jesus trailed with a gentle frown. “I didn’t know. I could call you something different when we return. Would they notice?”

“They might,” Azram said. “But coming from you, they might not question it.” A slight, tilted smile. “You do have that effect.”

Jesus laughed softly. “Yes, I do.” Then, he ventured, “If it was such a risk… why did you tell me in the first place?”

“And go about whilst being called ‘Legion’ as if that wouldn’t attract surplus attention?”

“You could’ve given me a different name.”

He blinked. “I didn’t see the point. If you wanted to know it, you could have taken it from me.”

Jesus opened his mouth but closed it again before he started to speak. He took a moment to collect himself then asked, “What would you prefer to be called, then?”

“It’s hardly a matter of preference.”

“Azram,” Jesus said in a way that sounded almost like a warning, but unlike every other being he’d ever known, it didn’t feel like a real threat. He didn’t know if he’d ever understand the difference.

“Abel would suffice.”

He braced for the backlash, for the accusations, but Jesus only smiled brightly, and repeated, “Abel,” as if Azram had somehow given him the universe.

* * *

There were more disciples in Jerusalem than there were when Jesus left. The Pride that grew within him could so-easily be the damning kind, but it grew like a plant towards the sun, never reaching for more than it needed to survive.

Those days were so short, it seemed. Azram couldn’t forget that they were precisely numbered, that every day drew closer to whatever vile end Heaven had chosen for him.

The first time Jesus told his disciples that he would die, it seemed as though they hadn’t heard him.

Soon, the strain of holding the burdens of every person who followed him became too much. He withdrew somewhat and limited himself to thirteen confidantes, thirteen leaders among the growing cavalcade. Of these, he was closest to Azram, to Peter, and to Judas Iscariot.

Of those, only Peter doubted the coming end.

There was a certain tenderness, a mournful sort of love that humans had for the dying. Judas carried it in his heart, and in his company, Jesus could safely feel that sorrow. He could let the weight of the world slip from his shoulders. He could be an ordinary man in those stolen moments, beloved entirely for who he was rather than the purpose he’d been assigned.

People crowded to him, and he embraced them as his equals.

Though he spoke often of love, there was a fire that couldn’t be extinguished, a righteousness any angel would envy. His anger burned quickly, brightly, and those who witnessed it turned away.

A woman shivered on the ground, her head tucked under her hands, her body curled tightly in on itself as Jesus argued for her right to live. Her accusers held heavy stones, and Jesus stood between them and their victim. He was practically blazing with glory as he dared them to strike her, to refuse their own failings to condemn another. Azram watched the rocks tumble from their hands, watched them walk away, then approached the fallen woman with fingertip bruises pressed into her skin and offered his own hand to bring her to her feet.

“Wouldn’t think that Their child would be so angry,” Azram noted that night when Jesus struggled to sleep.

“Why wouldn’t I be? All the evil things in this world—”

“That you could stop,” he reminded.

Jesus laughed without humor. “Wouldn’t that be overriding free will?”

“Is free will worth preserving if people use it for such terrible things?”

“Yes,” he said without a moment’s hesitation, without a single thought. There was a subtle accusation in his tone, an indication that he realized he was being led. “You wouldn’t covet it otherwise.”

### 33 AD

Gethsemane was quiet.

He could hear the distant, fevered murmurings of Jesus as he prayed. Azram noted the waver of his voice, the hesitation in his words, the choked sobs as the end bore mercilessly down on them all.

Dinner had been intimate and quiet; the last lessons of their beloved teacher had washed over the gathered men and the demon who moved seamlessly among them. There had been accusations of several imminent betrayals, and the gears had begun to turn. Then, the five of them had come here. Jesus wished to pray alone, and the other four were to wait, to witness, to support.

Azram felt Sloth take them, his own eyelids weighing heavily, requiring him to fight if he didn’t want to succumb to sleep. He gave one long blink, contemplating the darkness and the relief it offered before remembering that he wasn’t here for himself.

When he opened them, he saw her, standing, shaded from the moon by the branches of an olive tree, looking wounded and heartbroken when she had no right to show up and interfere here, now, at the end when it no longer mattered.

Corvai looked much like she had twenty-one years before. Her hair was still the color of clay and dying fire — even in the shadows, it seemed out of place, perhaps even garish. Her honey-gold eyes held onto him, full of an emotion he didn’t dare to name.

“Leave,” he warned, stepping closer to the sleeping men, stepping between Corvai and where Jesus bargained with a loveless deity for his life.

“I can’t,” she said, her voice tight, barely managing to escape her throat. “Ram, you shouldn’t be _here_—”

“No,” he seethed. “I have kept his company for eight years. I’ve traveled with him, I’ve _been_ there. You don’t get to tell me to leave now.”

Corvai flinched, expression crumpling further. “Not ‘cause of me, you idiot. There’ll be Archangels, and— you know it’s not _safe_.”

“Oh, so you care about my safety _now_?” Azram gave a bitter laugh. “After all the times you’ve personally seen to my destruction? How darling.”

“Enough,” came a torn, empty voice at his side. Jesus sighed at the sight of his sleeping disciples. Tears gathered in his eyes, despair gnawing its way into his bones. A trickle of blood ran from his hairline like sweat. “It is done. The guard should approach soon.” He aimed that weary, broken smile towards Azram, “You should go, my friend.”

Rage ravaged him like a wildfire. “No. I belong right here.”

He gave the slightest tired shake of his head. “Abel,” Jesus said gently, “don’t make me a witness to your suffering.”

“I can assure you that I’ll suffer whether you see it or not.”

“Then let me be selfish in this one thing.” He swallowed thickly. “Please.”

Azram shook his head, but even as he did, he felt time dwindling, cutting so finely as though they had already run out of it and some force beyond understanding kept the end at bay for a few more precious, stolen moments. His words ran dry, all possible well wishes and farewells meaning nothing in the face of this, now. When he managed to find them, it was as close to a blessing as he could give: “I hope Heaven is kinder to you.”

Then, like that, their time was up. Azram melted into the night with Corvai, unseen observers as Judas appeared at the garden gate with a strange brightness to his eyes and a purposeful stride to his gait. He stepped over their stirring companions and took Jesus’s face in his hands. The kiss was not their first, but there was a new energy to it, something desperate and aching that went beyond anything Azram could feel or understand.

“I forgive you,” Jesus breathed after, forehead resting against Judas’s in the quiet seconds before the guards rushed to take him.

In the ensuing chaos, Corvai disappeared without a word.

* * *

Hell couldn’t have devised such cruelty.

A long, sleepless night, interrogation after interrogation turned to a physical beating. Azram watched with an unwavering gaze as Jesus was torn open and apart, as the crowd _cheered_ for his screams of pain that petered quickly into soundless agony. Azram counted the lashes one by one and swore by each to make humanity suffer for them, to make Heaven pay for such unmitigated brutality.

After, they handed Jesus the beams on which he was to be executed, and he dragged them through the streets of Jerusalem until he collapsed from the weight. The Romans pulled a bystander to carry it and forced Jesus back to his feet again and again until the procession reached Golgotha outside the city walls.

How terrible it was to hear such suffering, to watch a living thing be nailed in place and hoisted up to the jeers of a crowd.

How terrible and how utterly familiar.

Jesus embodied everything that They’d praised, every virtue and more, yet he still hung from the wooden beams, blood running from the holes in his hands and feet, breath heaving in his shuddering lungs. He had been placed there over thirty years ago, when Heaven had decided to create an idol for humanity to follow. Every moment, every heartbeat, every breath had been leading him to this suffering, this slow and undignified death.

He saw robes of black amid the mourners, and he saw her crocodile tears. Corvai had the audacity to cry for Jesus as though she wasn’t responsible, as if she didn’t stand resolutely beside his tormentors, his murderers. 

Azram stalked closer though he couldn’t pull her away now. He couldn’t leave Jesus to this lonely fate. Azram didn’t dare to spare himself; Jesus had asked not to be a witness to his suffering, but he had never agreed to look away from this indignity, from the suffering or pain. He never agreed not to be furious on Jesus’s behalf.

But he could right what few pitiful wrongs stood before him.

His hand lashed out, fingers pressing bruises into the delicate bone of Corvai’s wrist, nails digging bloodless crescents into her brown skin. Her arm tensed under his hand, but she didn’t look away from Jesus’s execution.

“You don’t get to mourn him when your side put him up there.”

Her breath shook, and her confession was as soft as a breeze: “I know.” Her throat clicked with a thick swallow, and a fresh wave of tears carved rivers down her freckled cheeks. “I know.”

It was the right answer, but it stoked the fury inside of him to a fever pitch. It burned him from the inside out, and he could feel the skin under his fingers warm to his touch before it blistered and hardened. Still, she didn’t pull away.

What would it feel like to tear her limb from limb? He’d been naive to the end, assuming that Heaven would notice, would _care_ about any amount of human suffering. They didn’t care about humans, but angels? They would notice; they would react. Surely for an angel—

They had to.

They _would_.

There was a sudden, shuddering sob, and Azram watched in dismay as Jesus wept as he had in the wilderness without any defense, without comfort, utterly and completely alone. His pain lay heavy on Azram’s tongue, tasting overwhelmingly, disgustingly saccharine. No victory could have tasted sweeter, and he could stomach none of it.

“How was he?”

Already past tense, already passed on and away though he still bled and suffered. In time, his breathing would become shallower, and what little air he managed wouldn’t be enough. Eventually, his lungs would stop working altogether, and in a matter of minutes, he would choke to death. But that was hours off with a long road of quiet agony between then and now. “He was stupid.”

She glared at him, scowling, and Azram’s claws pricked her skin, digging as much as he could without drawing any of her holy blood. “Y’can’t say that—” she started.

“Even now, he believes this was the right thing to do. He believes there’s a reason to all of this pain and suffering. He believes in Their Plan despite the fact that a kind God, a benevolent God would never have put him in this place to begin with. He knew that wasn’t kindness or mercy or grace, it’s certainly not _love_, yet here we are because he never had a choice, did he?”

Corvai said nothing for long moments, and Azram dug his claws in with a snarl, “Did he?”

“Hh— He was human,” she breathed. “He had free will.”

A new, violent pain contracted through his chest. “He had an illusion.” He dropped her arm, golden, gently-glowing blood dripping from his claws, from her arm onto the forsaken soil at Golgotha. “How can free will exist if every detail is already written in the blessed Plan?”

“I don’t know,” she said, and it wasn’t enough. Her blind faith would never be enough.

Not long after, the crowds began to disperse, taking their sick joy with them, leaving the soldiers gambling at the foot of Jesus’s cross and those who were here to mourn him.

It took almost a day before the last of Jesus’s shaking began to subside, when his lips turned blue and his eyes struggled to stay open. Whatever prayer he uttered at the end was lost even in the empty stillness of the oppressive silence. There was nothing to drown it out but cruel, uncaring reality as the alleged son of God suffocated to death.

A soldier jabbed into Jesus’s side, sliding his spear through the gap in his ribs straight to his heart. Lightning cracked across the sky, and the Earth heaved under their feet as the sky overhead was engulfed in dark clouds. In moments, there was a torrent of rain as the fury of Divine sorrow flooded across Golgotha and into Jerusalem.

Azram waited until they pulled Jesus down from his cross, then he blinked out of the rain. 

He reappeared in a cold, dark room with a long, low table. The memories of that last night clung to this room: excitable men, a sermon of dedication, a sense of impending doom that only Jesus and Azram had understood fully.

It wasn’t home to anything but a meal that had long gone cold, but it would suffice. He flicked a wet finger, expelling the water from his skin and clothes. Then, he pinched the air, drawing his fingers upward. An unlit candle was drawn out of the air and settled into a plain candlestick in the center of the vacant table.

Thunder rolled overhead, and Azram glared upwards. “I’m not doing this for You,” he reminded with a sneer, ignoring the blood in his mouth, the profane stain on his lips. He leaned close to the candle, cupping the wick with his hands, and with a soft breath, a flame flickered to life.

Seconds later, it almost went out as the air rushed outward, away from the new occupant in the room.

“If you’re here to destroy me, I must warn you — it won’t be as easy as it has been.”

“I— okay?” Corvai said, but she made no move towards him as he sank onto one of the cushions and folded his hands into his lap. He glanced first at the candle and then up to Corvai who was still soaking wet and looking around the room for some answer before she finally asked the question herself: “What’re you doing?”

“Mourning him the way his people do.”

“Why?”

“Why else?” Azram took a deep breath, pulling his wild thoughts away from revenge, from the pain of the cross, from his own acute despair. “It’s what he deserves.”

Corvai folded her long limbs onto a cushion across from Azram. “He’s— s’gonna be back in three days,” she admitted.

“No,” Azram sighed. “He won’t. Whatever he’ll have seen — it will have changed him.” He closed his eyes, succumbing to the dark rather than risk meeting her eyes. “Visions are one thing, but once he sees Heaven or Hell properly, he won’t be the same.” A confession and an accusation: “I’d be surprised if he could still be considered human at all.”

Corvai made a vague noise, and there was a long, comfortable silence that lasted several hours. Just when Azram might have forgotten that she was there, she asked, “Mind if I stay?”

“Why? Do you care?”

“I do,” she said, and Azram’s eyes opened to find her sclera swallowed by gold, narrow slitted pupils staring past the flame. “When Job sat to mourn, his friends sat with him. I can’t mourn him — you’re right, I’ve got no right to it. But… you don’t have to be alone. Not while you’re grieving.”

Azram observed flatly, “Careful, angel. Demons don’t get kindness or any of that other tosh.”

“Demons?” she hummed. “Maybe not. But disciples?” Corvai’s eyes were so unbearably warm. “Couldn’t let one wander off alone, could I?”

Azram sighed, “I suppose you couldn’t.”


	22. the plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies for the delay on this chapter. may 15th was my birthday, so i didn't have the same amount of time this week to write that i normally do.
> 
> reminder to heed the tags which have been updated for this chapter!

On the third day, there was nothing.

He’d expected a preternatural sense of unease if not a cataclysm of violence as everything was forcefully righted, shattered and remade in the image of the blessed Plan. Azram blinked from the ever-burning candle towards the windows. Their thick coverings shielded them from the harsh light of day and from the relentless turn of time, but Azram knew. There was daylight beyond there. There was a miracle that should be shaking the foundations of the universe.

Instead, there was nothing.

It was strangely fitting.

Corvai stirred on the cushion across from him, her eyes turning from her idle hands to Azram as he shifted on his cushion and got his feet beneath him. “Ram?” she started, but he shook his head, reaching for the coverings on a window.

The vague steps of a plan began to coalesce in his head, refusing to define themselves as he glanced out into the day-lit street.

He had to go back. He had to deliver his report. He had to be ready for the last eight years to be torn from his head, to be absorbed and used against him.

He had to. There was no other option.

“Abel?”

It was so soft and just over his right shoulder, so close that he imagined he could feel the heat from her body or the pulse at her fingertips as they reached out for him. Was she trying to be kind, now, or was she reminding him of everything he had lost in the light of the dying sun when Cain took his sword in hand? Was there a difference, really, for an angel?

“What,” he demanded, refusing to turn to face her. Too often, he’d seen her wide eyes, her trembling lips, had taken her expressions for granted. She’d used them to manipulate him for so long — why give her the chance to do it again?

Why not let her drive the knife directly into his back rather than facing her?

“‘M sorry.”

He waited for the rush of divine power, for his body’s cells to burn as his atoms scattered. He waited and was met with nothing. Slowly, he let the curtain fall back into place and gave a slight, bitter scoff. “Whatever for?” The beat of silence was too condemning, too frustratingly empty. “You were doing your _job_, weren’t you? Nothing personal, surely.”

She inhaled sharply, and several aborted syllables fell from her lips. Finally, Corvai said, “I… I need to go. ‘Til next time.”

A dry laugh crowded his throat and died as the fabric of reality twisted to tearing, allowing Corvai to sidestep to somewhere else. The ensuing quietude settled heavily over him, suffocating in this lonely room.

He had to go, but there was something before that. Almost idly, Azram looked down at his hands, at his well-kept nails and soft palms.

“Take you this bread,” he murmured, “and eat for it is my body.”

He felt that long-familiar sting, the way his wretched tongue ached sharply as though it had been cut and wrung. Black drops seeped from the corner of his mouth as a pained smile twisted on his lips. The words were less than a week old, and they no longer belonged to the one who had spoken them. They no longer belonged to him, either, who had sat at Jesus’s side, who had been present at that lesson. If Azram wanted to, he could have recounted from Gergesa, could have found the first words Jesus had spoken to him, and he could have recited them all to see which had been stolen away by Heaven and turned into prayers or blessings, into things he wasn’t allowed to speak for himself.

The last thing in this world that he’d left behind was this body inhabited by a demon, an unearned gift given to a murderer, a liar, a monster.

It had to be destroyed. If he returned with it intact, Lucifer would want to know its origins. If Azram wanted to hide any amount of sentimentality, if he wanted to hoard a moment’s kindness for himself where it might not be stolen away, he couldn’t begin with such an obvious misstep.

He couldn’t.

With a wave of his hand, the candle went out.

* * *

Azram found Andrew in mourning. The youthful exuberance that had made him eager to learn, follow, and change the world had bled dry and left behind an empty vessel, a husk. He was hardly the shadow of the man who had walked up from the river of Jordan at Jesus’s side, his first human compatriot, his first trusted apostle. It wouldn’t last. Jesus had returned, and when Andrew was brought again to his side, he would become tainted by the holy rapture of restored purpose.

Azram had to speak to Andrew now, while he still belonged to himself.

A tremor ran through his hands as he sat next to Andrew. Azram pressed them down into his lap and focused on the here and now, eyes on the impending horizon rather than where their paths would soon diverge.

It was a lie like many others, rooted in truth and devoured whole by his deceptive nature. He spoke of an exorcism gone awry, of faith shattered by a terrible loss.

He asked for help and handed Andrew a half-full waterskin.

* * *

There was nothing. As far as the eye could see, in every direction imaginable, there was an empty, endless void. It was neither light nor dark, neither lonely nor occupied. He was weightless, bodiless, free to unwind, unfold, rushing outward towards the limitless horizons, untethered, uncaged.

YOU.

Only, of course, it didn’t sound quite like ‘you’.

Reluctantly, he conceded the slightest amount of space, creating a wide enough berth for Samael to manifest. The Archangel reminded him of dark mourning curtains, candles flickering and burning as the time allotted for grieving dwindled further. There was an emptiness to him, as well, like the ravine in the wilderness, a chasm waiting to be filled and emptied and filled again. Perhaps that was why Samael could be here: because he, too, was nothing.

WHY?

“Why not?” he spoke with no mouth, heard with no ears, saw with no eyes.

IT HURT, DIDN’T IT.

Images and sensations flashed through the expanse. The waterskin, an empty room. The last bloodied words: _“Drink of this, for it is my blood.”_ How it had burned. His mouth, his throat, his stomach. The onset of panic, the way his body had reconfigured itself without his permission, trying to isolate the source of agony, trying to save him. It seeped deeper, something divine poisoning, eroding, scouring away all traces of him.

In that last moment, he’d thought of lips against his, the possessive feeling of Corvai’s hands, the cool early evening wind outside of Bethlehem. Against his better judgement, he had been content.

It had hurt, but oh, there was rhapsody in the pain.

I SEE.

He heard a note of disquiet and slowly attempted to right himself, but there was no way to know up from down, where he was meant to begin or end. He was everywhere, nowhere, more than he’d ever been yet less than extant.

This was the space where angels and demons must go before they died.

Only, he noted with vague alarm, he was still here.

He was still himself.

He was Azram, a demon of Pride, and _he_—

He was still alive.

The claustrophobia choked him, the infinite plane now a cage from which he could no longer escape. Samael remained still, an anchor in the sudden swell of a storm.

Chain upon chain speared into Azram and tethered him to a form he didn’t want. A soundless scream resounded within him as they began to move, pulling his edges in, triangulating slowly inward towards a single point where he would be confined again. Every attempt to struggle brought more of the chains, and every new point made him aware of a shape being formed. Sharp, shattered wheels were being pulled into position. His wings, endless in number yet half shriveled, were pinned open, spread wide.

This was the cruelty of creation. The pain bled from him, agony torn from the tongue that didn’t exist. “Why are you here if it didn’t work?”

BECAUSE I COULD GIVE YOU THIS IF NOTHING ELSE. TIME OUT OF TIME, A MOMENT’S RESPITE.

The chains pulled tighter towards a middle ground, light forming as more and more linked together, pulling him into a solid shape. They finally merged into one and tore him from this purgatory. Reality crashed around him, time surging forward second by second, minutes, hours, days passing in a blink as he was grounded, reassembled, and dragged back to Hell.

* * *

There was nothing, a notable absence, an emptiness, a pit. He was numb save for where the heels of his hands ground into the floor, where his knees had cracked against bedrock. A pressure remained on his chest as if the chain was still spearing through him, holding him down, pinning him in place. Darkness swam at the edges of his vision but never came nearer.

Instead, there was nothing but a pervasive sense of unreality. Hell swam around him; the first circle faded to the second and onward, replaced soon with an ornate floor, decoration cut into the solid stone, something like a seal etched around him. His eyes lazily traced the lines, taking in the vague shape of the spell, slowly comprehending a purpose for it: communication with a specific entity.

Words echoed hollowly around his head as he traced a symbol, cutting his thumb along the edge of it. He had no blood to bleed into the sigil that had once been his. It belonged, now, like all things, to Lucifer.

The name itself felt like a light, drawing him in until he was burning with it. Fevered murmurs crowded in his useless mouth, idle words that only stopped when they were forced. Still, he tried, Lucifer’s name forming on his lips in a voiceless prayer.

He hadn’t realized there were hands on him until they were gone. He sagged to the ground, a puppet with cut strings, all but lifeless.

Lucifer never healed him with a snap. Yet, he heard one. It cut through the fog in his head, and he felt a surge of something electric course, unwanted, through his celestial form, lighting him up like a star until it all rushed out again.

The sigil under his hands disappeared, and the pressure on his chest was finally gone.

Trembling, he pushed himself weakly up. The vertigo began to abate, leaving behind a vague nausea and faint feeling in its place.

“Nice of you to finally come back. Only had to be summoned for Satan knows how long.”

Azram had no doubt that Beelzebub was being quite literal. The Devil had probably counted every second where Azram failed to account for himself — he’d pay dearly for each.

Beelzebub buzzed, zir voice harsh, “Suggest you pull yourself together. We’re going to the courtroom soon as you can say anything useful.”

Azram nodded, hands curling into fists as he stared down at the summoning circle.

His first plan had failed. Unfortunate, perhaps, but he’d rarely been the sort to put all of his eggs in one basket. He’d prepared for the worst.

Soon, he shakily stood and met King Beelzebub’s eyes until ze snapped zir fingers again and restored his voice.

“Where’ve you been?” ze demanded, derision dripping from zir voice like the sludge that ran down the walls of the room.

“Seeing to an execution.” Azram said blandly as if the whole affair had been an annoying footnote, a boring job he was glad to have behind him. Then, gravely, he added: “Someone taught the humans how to make holy water.”

Beelzebub’s eyes widened, and Azram smothered the feeling of satisfaction before he gave himself away.


	23. the traitor. (part one)

Beelzebub shoved open a door that, against all logic and reason, led to the antechamber. Ze eyed him flatly as he stepped past zir, letting him feel terribly watched and judged, every movement weighed against his guilt. Every twitch of his hands, every flick of his eyes, even the way he walked towards the door might somehow give him away. He swept into the antechamber, unpleasantness crawling with a familiar touch up the gap between his wings.

“Caruk,” ze snapped, and the demon behind the desk looked up and around before locating where the door had manifested. They looked at Azram for only a moment, eyes narrowing with suspicion before they flicked past to the doorway. “Announce him to the Court. He’s here on official business.”

Ze slammed the door before Caruk could acknowledge that ze’d said anything, and the edges of it quickly vanished as if it had never been.

“Anythin’ interestin’?”

“One could say,” Azram said as Caruk rounded the desk. He keenly watched as they pushed past him, headed for the doors, muttering something under their breath. “It’s strange, isn’t it?” Azram mused, striding after Caruk and standing only a step behind.

“What?”

“That humans can make holy water,” he said as if this had been common knowledge for centuries, as if he’d had a run-in and a narrow escape with a known snag rather than a variable he’d changed on his own.

Caruk served as both the literal and figurative doordemon between the Court and the rest of Hell. They were the blockade that the average demon had to surmount to gain access to the Court, and they were the first demon outside of the Court to hear every official missive that would spread like wildfire to the rest of Hell. The Kingdom of Envy circulated information, but Caruk was one of their many sources.

By telling Caruk, Azram guaranteed that the information would spread. Regardless of what happened in the Court when he stepped through the door — regardless of how Lucifer punished him — the rumor would be traced back to this moment, this conversation. The anxiety caused by humans being able to destroy demons would threaten the stability of Lucifer’s control; he’d want to know where the rumor began, and he’d want to contain the search to as few demons as possible. He would come seeking Azram.

Whatever happened now, it wasn’t the end.

Caruk hesitated a moment, a visible shiver running across their skin. The four long tentacles that dripped from their face writhed, coiling almost into knots before going lax. Then, they pushed open the doors to the courtroom and stepped in. “Azram of Pride to see you, your Majesties, my Lord.”

Azram folded his hands behind him, braced against the inevitable. The possessive claiming, the barely-contained Wrath, the sadistic enjoyment of Azram’s suffering and submission — it had to be coming.

It had to be.

“Send him in,” Lucifer said, cloyingly sweet, deceptively warm. There was a deafening silence in the Court, a distinct lack of jeering, arguing, infighting. As Caruk stood to the side and Lucifer’s light blinded him and beckoned him in, Azram realized that there was no noise at all despite the courtroom being full.

It was a practiced walk to the center of the room, standing in the middle of all of the Kingdoms, the Kings’ daises, every eye turned to him. He hadn’t garnered this much attention since Cain. The floor was smoother now, millennia of movement having worn down the rough texture of unpolished stone. The center, particularly, had a slight groove to it. Hellhounds fought here for the honor and glory of their masters. Demons were brought to answer for their successes and failures. The only denizens of Hell who weren’t paraded before the Court in one way or another were the human souls that were being tortured in the upper circles.

Lucifer’s radiance was always unbearable, and Azram, as he always had and always would, looked into it without blinking. Lucifer lounged on his throne, legs crossed at the knee, pale yellow hair cascading to his waist. His hands — decorated with sharp scales along the knuckles and wrists — rested on the arms of his throne. Smoke slowly drifted from the exposed scales as they burned red and hot.

To Azram’s mild surprise and infinite worry, Lucifer was smiling, amused and indulgent. It was the way he looked when he allowed Azram to act out in private before being brought forcibly back into line.

He swept into a deep bow and said, “My Lord,” with as much deference as he could muster. A long-ingrained instinct told him to spread his wings, to submit without being asked as wholly as he could. Even in front of all of these demons, it would be better than fighting, than what would come after if he struggled.

But. Lucifer seldom hid his anger where Azram couldn’t see it. Either he could start groveling now, which would give him away in an instant, or he could match Lucifer’s tone. Playing along was usually the best option. He stood at attention, hands clasped behind him.

“Azram,” the Lord of Hell said, smiling and glowing horribly brighter. “Tell me: is God’s son dead?”

It felt acutely like a trap. Jesus wasn’t supposed to stay dead. Three days in the afterlife, and he was to be brought back: the golden calf that didn’t fear death. What greater motivation could exist for mortals than an idol who didn’t die, who taught them not to fear their own demise? That was the point of him and this entire charade.

He hadn’t seen Jesus since Golgotha. Azram hadn’t seen him since his heart had been pierced with the spear, since his lungs halted with his last shallow breath.

A technicality, true, and a flimsy one at that when he _knew_ Heaven’s plans — but there was freedom in the gray areas between outright lies and absolute truth. Never enough to kill or save him but enough to be useful.

With a bright smile and a bit of pleasant malice, he said: “I am terribly afraid he was executed three days ago outside the city of Jerusalem.”

The Court _erupted_. The raucous celebration shook the courtroom walls; the sheer volume pushed his thoughts out of his head, left him staring at Lucifer as he _grinned_, no longer feigning disinterest or detachment as he sat up in his throne.

He curled a hand and crooked a finger, indicating that Azram should approach. He did, as always, without hesitation. Beneath the roar of the Court, Lucifer spoke words only meant for Azram’s ears that he heard as if the rest of Hell had fallen away. “Well done, my pet.”

Azram sat in his spot at Lucifer’s feet, feeling the familiar scrape of his master’s claws through his curls and watched as the celebrations turned quickly to mutual violence.

The revelation hit him all at once with such force that it would have taken his breath away if he’d allowed himself to breathe.

Lucifer needed this to be a success. However marginal the victory, however technical the answer — he couldn’t afford to have Hell restless and afraid, so demoralized that the death of a single human brought this much of a clamor. All of this, every scream, every shout, every shred of claws and teeth and whatever else the other demons did to one another — every last bit of it was an excess of energy, a relief for the tension that had been outside of Lucifer’s meticulous control and manufactured chaos.

Lucifer _couldn’t_ punish him without revealing that Hell had well and truly lost, without enabling doubt in his own ranks. He needed the Court to believe he was untouchable, all-powerful, and nigh-omniscient. However he’d had to spin Azram’s report, he would have made it into a success.

Whatever Azram might have done on Earth, he had been under Lucifer’s self-serving protection the moment he had chosen Azram as his last resort.

He wasn’t sure what he should have felt. Relief, probably, that he wouldn’t be consigned to some dark pit for the rest of eternity. Maybe some trepidation for whatever followed would be wise. After all, he had started the ripples that would grow slowly into waves, weaving anxiety about humans with holy water through the five Kingdoms that weren’t ruled by Lucifer.

Instead, there was a rather disquieting emptiness. He needed to think, to plan, to prepare, but there was a persistent static in his head, numbing his thoughts, his feelings, and the rest of his internal workings.

Lucifer scratched at the base of one of his horns, and Azram was cognizant enough to give him a breathy sigh.

* * *

In time, Lucifer tired of the celebrations. Azram felt the gradual change, the way his idle touches became more pointed, more painful. Azram wasn’t surprised when he took his leave nor was he surprised that Lucifer dragged him along without asking for Azram’s permission.

Anticipation prickled down his spine as he reappeared in Lucifer’s rooms, and he waited expectantly for the interrogation to begin. After all, he’d been missing for eight years. According to Beelzebub’s summoning circle, he had been out of reach in every meaningful way. He had no way of knowing if Lucifer had attempted to bring him back himself. Regardless of what happened beyond these walls, in this private space, the failure to answer wouldn’t go unpunished.

Azram stood, posture stiff and formal as Lucifer prowled aimlessly through the dark, smooth stone of his self-made cage.

Azram expected accusations and prying, the careful dance of appeasement and submission while searching desperately for an exit. Their battle of wits and wills was inevitable by Azram’s estimation. It was something he would always lose, but winning was never really the goal. He only needed to be interesting enough for Lucifer to lengthen his leash again.

Yet, Lucifer trailed a hand over the mantle of the fireplace, among the glittering jewels, the myriad of bloodied weapons, and the horrible human skull whose owner Azram had never cared about enough to ask. There were more offerings, now — there would always be more, Azram reflected idly as Lucifer procured a pouch from the pile, hefting it in his palm.

It disappeared in a flash of flame and reappeared in front of Azram, floating until he held out a hand to catch it. The purse fell into his palm, heavy and full, weighty. Azram blinked from the bag up to Lucifer, but the Lord of Hell was watching him with a sharp smile.

Unable to discern what in Satan’s name he’d been given it for, he opened the purse and fished out a single coin. It flashed silver in the low ambient light, and Azram knew the make to be Roman. It clattered back into the bag with its fellows.

It wasn’t a reward; he knew that immediately. Nor was it a challenge, a puzzle intentionally given to him to solve. He was supposed to understand the significance already.

The silence was chilling. Lucifer wanted him to break it, and Azram was in the general habit of giving Lucifer almost anything he desired. The unintentional test weighed on his tongue, curling thickly in the back of his throat before he smiled, polite yet haughty, airily condescending. “Such simple animals, really. Greed’s hardly an elegant sin.”

Lucifer’s smile widened. “Be sure to tell that to Mammon.”

Azram scoffed, “Please. I’m sure he’s already well aware. So long as it works.”

“And it did.” The purse thumped to the floor as Lucifer stepped close, a hand cupping Azram’s jaw, claws trailing near his empty pulse. His incandescence swallowed Azram whole. Light pressed at the shape of him, molding itself to his wings as they were forcibly manifested. It sank into the minute space between feathers, in the tight press of his barbs, holding Azram completely and utterly in its cold embrace. “Thirty coins. Thirty shiny but _meaningless_ pieces of silver for the son of God.”

The pieces of the puzzle aligned to form a picture of Judas, a bribe accepted as the price of betrayal. A futile anger curled in his gut and crawled up his spine. “One would think a disciple would demand a higher price for his soul,” he mused bitterly, hoping Lucifer would overlook the deeply personal aspect of his rage. “I’m sure he’ll regret it soon enough.”

Lucifer grinned, his mouth practically against Azram’s. “That’s the idea.” His fangs scraped over Azram’s soft lips before he ducked his head, perusing the column of Azram’s throat. The bite would vanish the moment his fangs pulled away. The pain was temporary. Azram had to remind himself. The blossom of sharp, possessive ownership didn’t come. Instead, Lucifer mused, “Do you remember our little… project at Sodom?”

He didn’t think of hands, of the electric press of bodies, the sensation of drowning in flesh. Azram didn’t think about feeling the man inside him cum and die while still buried inside him. He didn’t think about Sandalphon standing over him, clothing him with a wave of his hand after waiting until he’d suffered through that last violation, until he’d had his fill of watching a demon suffer.

His voice had no reason to pitch or waver. “Dukes Furtur and Zepar were trying to convert humans with demon blood into fully-fledged demons to fill the ranks of the Legions. As I recall, they failed.”

“They did,” he said, nosing along the line of Azram’s jaw. “The humans weren’t ready. But the disciple — he has already forsaken God. He walked at the boy’s side, yet he betrayed him, killed him, gave himself to _us_.” Lucifer tired of touching this pitiable form, and Azram gasped as he reached within, instead, searching, taking without hesitation, claiming long-lost territory for himself. Azram felt as his form was moved, felt the embrace of Lucifer’s bed. The drag of sharp scales raked lines of light through his mind, around the fabric of his soul. 

Lucifer continued as if he wasn’t currently tearing Azram slowly apart, sinking deeper into him until Azram struggled to feel where Lucifer had pried him open to allow himself inside. “The others — they didn’t need convincing after the Fall. They were angels and then demons immediately after. But you, pet — you were neither when you were brought to me.”

A low laugh. “I want you to try,” he murmured, so deeply embedded inside Azram that the words felt like his own thoughts, like the empty echo of the loneliest days had finally gained sentience and begun talking back to him. “When I’m done with you, you’ll go to him. You will try to convert him to our side.”

“Yes,” he agreed, breathy then musing, “but I’ll need a body, my Lord.”

“Oh, pet. No,” Lucifer chuckled, and Azram felt a multitude of teeth as sharp as sewing needles skimming every part of his incorporeal form. “Didn’t you know? He’s already here.”

Lucifer finally bit, and the ensuing burst of pain turned into a supernova, rushing through every part of him again and again and again, a cacophony of light and suffering.

* * *

Azram did not visit this part of Hell often. 

Once human souls came to Hell, they were the purview of hundreds of other demons who delighted in torturing them. Azram didn’t personally see the need for tortured souls, nor did he understand why so many demons enjoyed what was quite obviously the most blatant busywork that either Heaven or Hell had ever come up with. The souls already belonged to Hell — what difference did it make to Lucifer if they were suffering or if they were stashed somewhere to be forgotten and ignored? What good did it do for Hell for screams to echo off the walls and for demons to prepare tedious reports about the new, innovative ways they’d found to make humans miserable?

Perhaps it was a question of optics. Maybe it _looked_ better if those souls were doing something rather than rotting somewhere. After all, if the souls weren’t doing anything, why bother collecting them in the first place? Otherwise, they would go to Heaven, and Satan below knew what Heaven wanted them for.

Wisely, Azram kept most of these musings to himself. Ironically, the one demon he could ask without risking immediate and utter disapproval was Lucifer himself, but Azram doubted he would get a satisfactory answer if he bothered to ask.

He was stalling, perhaps, just outside the room that had been created and set aside for this very special session. Azram could feel the crawl of eyes on him, could feel the judgement of other, more experienced demons, and he could feel pangs of Envy from those who never understood how dangerous the double-edged blade of Lucifer’s attention was.

Finally, sufficiently braced, he stepped through the wall and felt the semblance of a door seal behind him.

Judas looked the same.

It startled Azram, though he wasn’t quite sure why. Of course Judas wouldn’t have changed in the week since the garden of Gethsemane, since he’d come from the city to intrude upon sleeping apostles and take Jesus’s lips with his own.

Judas was in a bare and empty room. The darkness pressed in from all sides, so thick it felt almost tangible. He sat with his legs crossed, one hand in his lap and the other wrapped around his throat. Unseeing eyes stared into the middle distance, and it stuck Azram, now, that they were not as they had been before. In Gethsemane, they had been unbearably bright, almost star-like in their gleaming, but now they were a light brown and dull with the sorrow that sang through him.

Azram flicked a finger up and in a circle. Small, contained spouts of hellfire burst to life, lighting the room as Judas scrambled back at the sudden interruption. He pressed his back to the far wall, snarling soundlessly until he adjusted to the light and could stop squinting. He blinked up at Azram once, twice, then smiled, trembling and hopeful as if he’d been saved.

Judas saw Azram with his horns, ears, and eyes in the bowels of Hell and dared to have _hope_.

“Azram?” he said, hands scrabbling at the walls as he got to his feet. “Thank G—” Judas choked on the word, throat closing around it before he abandoned it entirely. “You’re _here_—”

“Yes,” he said dryly. “One might expect to find a demon in Hell.”

Judas froze for less than a blink, hardly a moment in time. Had Azram not been watching him like a hawk, he might have missed the quick hesitation, the moment of doubt that evaporated in an instant. “Is he here?”

“Jesus?” Azram asked coldly. “No. Why would the son of God be where demons and traitors dwell?”

“Tra— Traitors?”

As calmly as he could manage, he spoke: “In the great legacy that began with Cain who slew his brother, did you not lead your beloved teacher to his death?”

Judas blinked wildly then shook his head, the tangle of his hair coiling around his face and beard. “No. I— _no_.”

Rage roared in his chest, but Azram doubted that liars and the self deceiving were rare in this circle of Hell. “Then it was not you who led the guards to arrest him? It wasn’t you who kissed Jesus to signal your betrayal?” Judas shook his head fervently, searching for words. Azram refused to let Judas have them. The walls crept with Azram, closing in as he prowled nearer, forcing them nearly together. “You are not the reason he was beaten, then marched to Golgotha to be executed?”

Judas stared in mute horror, and a multitude of Azram’s eyes opened, staring at him, into him, daring him to lie again. “Tell me: did you have the decency to watch him die, or did you kill yourself before you were a witness to his suffering?”

“I didn’t,” he said, voice small. “I— I did— wh— what I was supposed to, I—”

“For thirty pieces of silver.”

Judas’s eyes widened by a margin, and Azram braced for the revelation, for the despair and grief that was eating him alive to swallow Judas up as well. He waited for fear and sorrow, for repentance that came too late to save any of them.

Instead, there was a cold fury, a deep well of Wrath that bubbled to the surface. Judas snarled, “That isn’t what happened. I wasn’t paid. I wouldn’t take _money_ to— to _betray_ him.”

“You led the guards to him,” Azram said.

“Because it had to be done. Because it had to be _me_. He told me that—”

A disbelieving scoff, “The son of God said it had to be you.”

Judas’s fist slammed into the stone wall, a cry breaking in his chest: “The angel!”

His own rage burned in his chest, and without waiting, without asking, he grabbed Judas’s head and pried his claws into the space between his thoughts and feelings, cracking him open until Azram found his memories.

He saw Jesus through Judas’s eyes: radiant, kind, and wonderful. Azram felt that warmth that he couldn’t understand, that well of emotion that he supposed must be affection, must be love, as near to Heaven as any living person could be. Azram saw some private place in Jerusalem, a moment alone with his thoughts underneath a starry sky, the taste of bread and wine still on his tongue, and the dread of the coming day when the darkness fell away.

He saw Gabriel for the first time in over four-thousand years, and he looked, annoyingly, the same, as if the years that had torn Azram apart piece by piece hadn’t touched him at all. He clasped his hands in front of himself, broad and confident, utterly at ease and unruffled. _“Is there a problem, Judas?”_

_“I’m betraying him,”_ softly spoken, disbelieving, afraid.

Where were the angelic platitudes now?

_“Mm,”_ Gabriel hummed, face scrunching in something that was almost a smile. _“Is it_ really _a betrayal? Playing your part in the Great Plan? Doing what you’re meant to do?”_

_“I don’t know.”_

_“I do,”_ he said with infuriating confidence.

_“No—”_ Judas shook his head, paced restlessly. _“No, he— That’s the word he used — ‘betray’. This is hurting him. I’ll be hurting him.”_

_“Death, generally, does hurt. Great feature we put in — teaches you all to avoid it.”_

_“Why does it have to be me?”_ Judas was hardly speaking, the words scraping in his tight throat as he forced them out, but the love he felt was stronger than his fear. His faith was stronger, too.

Gabriel shook his head, hardly hiding the annoyance as his eyes narrowed as he sighed. _“The ‘betrayal’ means nothing if it doesn’t come from you. He can’t be a martyr if they capture him accidentally.”_

Judas recoiled as if he’d been physically struck, and his eyes crept for the nearest escape.

A heavy sigh and an unsympathetic smile. _“I knew you couldn’t handle the Plan. Mortals just aren’t ready for it.”_ Gabriel lifted a hand, prepared his fingers to snap, and there was a blinding euphoria so strong and all-consuming that the world went white.

Azram saw the pouch of silver coins on the ground in front of him. He heard Judas beg, saw him offer it back, felt the despair that consumed him.

He didn’t make Judas relive the rest of it.


	24. the traitor. (part two)

The sweat that beaded on Judas’s brow and dripped onto Azram’s fingers was nothing more than a memory, replicated by Hell for the sake of Judas’s discomfort. Judas shuddered as the world came into focus around them both, the last, terrible memories fading to the darkened room and the torments that lay ahead. Azram’s hands fell away, and Judas sagged against the wall, a puppet with cut strings. Shallow breaths rattled in his chest, and he stared at the floor, sullen, empty, overwhelmed.

“Heaven lied to you.” It was as good a starting place as any. “They used you to tell a better story, and once you were of no further use to them, they tossed you aside.”

“I followed their orders.”

“And it was a sin.” Judas closed his eyes, trying to block out the hateful words, the awful truth. It occurred to Azram that he ought to remove that option. He had power, here, and the authority to do as he liked. Allowing Judas to lie to himself only delayed the inevitable. He ought to pry his eyes open. He ought to force understanding. Instead, he spoke. “They could hardly _reward_ you for it. Not if they wanted it to seem authentic.” He liked to think that humans and angels alike would waver in the face of such blatant contradiction, when faced with the way Heaven caused misery and mayhem in order to profit from it. They might open their eyes. They might question and rebel. It was an enjoyable fantasy, as paper-thin and fragile as it was.

Belatedly, Azram remembered the job he’d been given. He remembered the hand he needed to extend, the offer he needed Judas to take. “That’s what Heaven _does_ to humans. To people like you and Jesus, Andrew, and Peter. To every last one of his followers.”

“But… but _you_.” His unneeded breath shook.

Delicately cruel, “What about me?”

“You’re— you said you’re a _demon_. But you were with him, one of _us_. He spoke of, of rebellion and love and—”

He almost winced. “Ah. Are you still hoping for something meaningful to come from all of this? Hm? Do you expect him to unite Heaven and Hell in eternal peace because he tolerated a demon in his midst?” Judas’s jaw tightened and he didn’t answer. Azram scoffed. Some horrible weight rested on his horns and shoulders, growing heavier with every passing word. “I was one of you and very much like the rest. An individual, not a representative.”

Judas nodded slightly. “Then you believed in him?”

“I believed he had power.” That earned him a sharp look, but Azram was unrepentant and bitter. “I believed he had options, but he refused every single one of them. He chose Heaven over humanity, over Earth, over you and I.”

“He didn’t know.”

“He did. He was, in fact, the only human in any position to understand the enormity of what Heaven was doing to him. He had the compassion to expand his vision, to see how it would affect everyone else, and he refused to use it. He was complacent.”

Azram could feel a flare of futile anger, rage kindling in Judas’s heart as he curled tighter against the wall.

Decidedly, he stoked the flames. “He forgave you — do you remember that?”

Judas glared wordlessly at the floor, and Azram pressed.

“As if you’d done anything for which you needed his forgiveness. As if his _forgiveness_ would spare you this. The meek shall inherit, but for Judas the beloved disciple: _nothing_.”

“Why were you with him, then?”

The question cut through his sanctimonious anger. He wouldn’t admit his weakness or his fear, but that left precious few excuses. Hope was an option — a lie, but lies hardly mattered now — but it felt equally damning. What sort of demon hoped for salvation?

No, those were the wrong questions.

What he needed to ask was: what did Judas need to believe?

“To witness the hypocrisy myself. None of this is new; God’s Plan demands innocent sacrifices and such mortal pain. Jesus had the opportunity to turn away from it and didn’t. After that, it was really for my own edification. How closely would he adhere to expectations? How spectacularly would he fail?”

Judas’s eyes narrowed, his shoulders rolling forward in a hunch. He blinked a few times, the silence deliberate and damning. “No,” he said finally, the word so soft, so _innocent_. Wrath boiled like sulfur in Azram’s veins. Along the walls, the spouts of hellfire burned white-hot, the infernal heat boiling the room like a furnace. Judas flinched, but his anger and determination matched Azram’s own. “He loved you. You loved him, too.”

“Demons,” Azram informed him in a low voice, “don’t love.”

Desperately, his eyes went wide and shook over Azram’s face, “Then why do you care _why_ it happened?” Pain shivered through his voice, “Why are you _here_?”

“I should think that would be obvious.” He lifted his head minutely, shoulders squaring as he folded his hands behind him. “What do you think happens to souls that forfeit themselves to Hell?”

Judas, for the first time in the conversation, looked beyond Azram. He had stared at nothing, at the ground, misdirecting his attention to avoid confronting the wretched reality before him, but this was a pointed, searching look at the wall over Azram’s shoulder. He looked for an escape. Azram’s ears twitched back and his eyes narrowed. A palpable despair filled the room when Judas realized he was trapped.

Azram spoke as gently as he could manage though he was unable to fully conceal the sharp edge of damnation: “I come bearing an olive branch.” Judas raised his eyes again, watching Azram warily. “I could make you a demon.”

A sharp, startled bark, “Wh— what? Why?”

“Why?” He tilted his head just so. “To spare you the indignity and pain of an eternity of torture.” Azram grimaced. “Every other human made a series of choices that led to their damnation. Some were, perhaps, tempted or swayed, but it was ultimately a choice.” The truth was a dangerous tool and not one he chose to wield lightly. Giving Judas too much could spell his own doom — if he could find someone to believe him — but fatalistic nihilism had finally swallowed what little remained of Azram’s reservations. And why should he bother being clever when Heaven had been horrible enough to lay such sturdy groundwork? “Hell at large believes that you chose Greed. That you forsook everything Heaven taught you and stood for in order to fill your own pockets. They don’t know what Gabriel did. They already think you’re one of them.”

“I’m not.”

“In a way,” Azram corrected, “you are. Heaven took what it wanted from you then got rid of you. All you’re missing, really, is a pair of wings. The rest could be given to you.” Almost kindly, he asked, “Don’t you deserve a choice? It’s Hell either way, I’m afraid, but—”

“No.”

The abrupt interjection caught Azram by surprise. His tongue twisted in on itself, the words dying behind his clenched teeth. “My dear, I really don’t think you’ve given this the proper consideration.”

“What argument could you possibly make?” Judas challenged. “That it’s— it’s one thing to be the damned and another to be the one doing the damning? Y— you want me to drag other people, other _innocent_ people down here then say it was their choice?”

“Do you know what eternity is?” Judas opened his mouth to argue. Azram blinked and his mouth shut itself. “You can’t possibly; you died before you were forty. But you must _try_. What was the longest day of your life, do you think?” Judas glared, unable to speak.

Azram clicked his fingers at his back, and images played behind both of their eyes, at the forefront of their shattered minds. There was a crowd of humans, the twelve apostles crowded around their teacher whose eyes seemed distant and bruised with exhaustion. Jesus smiled wearily, skimming over his friends and still managing to look beyond to the gathered crowds. Azram asked, “Was it Eremos, the hours of talking and echoing down the mount? Watching him burn out day by day while more came to take what they could from him? Remember how cross he was when you all tried to protect him?”

Jesus reached for the children who had been turned away, turning his own cold shoulder to all of his disciples who had tried to give him a moment of rest. Judas sneered silently in his cell, though Azram could feel the hungry way he tried to linger, pulling against the fading memory, desperate for every glimpse of Jesus he could get.

“Or was it that last day, hm?” Judas’s eyes snapped up to him, betrayed, angry. “Knowing how desperately short time was becoming? No stolen moments with him, no chance to ask if he understood what you were meant to do? Forced to let him wash your feet, forced to hear him decry your part in his Father’s Plan, forced to march ever onward until…?”

The purse full of silver coins lay scattered on the ground, and Judas’s heart bled. He had died, then, when his words fell on deaf ears, when he couldn’t recant what Gabriel had forced him to do. The pain of betrayal and sorrow faded, leaving a terrible numbness in its place. His soul had been trapped in his body, both of them desecrated and ruined. What other option had there been but to destroy them both?

Judas clawed at the ground, tears biting at his eyes. His empty breaths hitched and shook heavily through his nose, gasping for more of Hell’s filthy air.

“Those days still ended,” Azram said. “You had a future that could be entirely different from the life you were living.” He clicked his fingers again, and Judas’s mouth opened with a heavy gasp right as the spouts of hellfire sputtered out. Judas glanced around wildly in the dark, cringing back towards the wall, silenced by fear. “In Hell, there’s only ever this.” His own memories bubbled to the surface, claws and fangs and flames. Atrox’s venom coursed through his blood and bones snapped under the weight of the unmitigated cruelty of gleeful sadism. Forty years he had survived in the dark, a plaything for the bored denizens of Hell, and after just a taste of it, the faintest memories pressed to Judas’s mind, Judas _wept_.

Perhaps, Azram mused, it had been a bit much. He allowed the lights to flicker to life again, soft, forgiving embers.

Then, in fevered whispers, Judas began to pray. Blood flecked from his lips with every forsaken word, each stoking the rage at the center of Azram’s heart. How did he not understand? How could he reach out, still, knowing — _knowing_ — that he wasn’t being heard?

“God isn’t listening.”

Judas ignored him.

“They _put you here_, and They forgot about you.” Azram sneered, “You’re to be damned and punished for a crime of which you are innocent. What sort of justice is that? What ineffable _mercy_?”

Still, Judas prayed.

“Turn the other cheek unless it’s against Heaven. Then, by all means, put them in their place.” He laughed miserably and seethed, “Everything he preached was a _lie_, Judas. Perhaps he believed in it, but at the end of the day, he still chose Heaven. He still chose to abandon you here—”

“And he will come for me.”

Azram stared, the sound of thunder in his ears drowning out the rest of his thoughts. Judas’s eyes clenched closed, his lips pressed to the fold of his hands, catching the words in his palms as if to keep Hell from hearing.

“I— I belong at his side. He will notice. He will come. You said so yourself — he _forgave_ me. You— you obviously can’t force me to accept your offer. You can’t change my mind.”

“Time will.”

“Ask me again, then. Ask me, and I swear— I swear the answer will be the same.”

With a slight huff and a click of his fingers, Azram extinguished the lights again. “Very well. I must warn you to enjoy this moment while it lasts. The next demons won’t be as kind.”

Judas nodded, bowed his head further against his hands, and murmured, “Thank you.”

Azram disappeared from the room before his fury made him do something he’d regret.

### 36 AD

Time went on, and Judas prayed.

No kindness or cruelty could reach him. Azram left him in the dark, festering in his despair, and still he prayed. Other demons removed him from his cell and treated him like any other human. A litany fell from his lips, endless loops of recitation broken by screams and sobs before he began again. Like the other bodiless inhabitants of Hell, his wounds healed quickly only to be inflicted again, but he never gave his mouth a chance. Scars and scabs crowded the open wound.

Even when they removed his voice, he prayed, the words soundless but present.

“A pity,” Lucifer said with a slight sigh. “Perhaps in a few centuries, he’ll reconsider.”

“My Lord,” Azram said and hoped with a churn in his gut that it wouldn’t take much longer.

Lucifer raised a hand and emptied the courtroom of every demon but himself, Azram, and the five Kings.

“I believe,” he said, voice imperious, authoritative, and echoing off the stone walls, “it’s time we talked about Armageddon.”


	25. the job.

There was a terrible beat of silence. The air seemed suddenly heavy and a good deal colder as the magnitude of purpose bore down on the remaining demons of the Court. Azram remained standing before Lucifer’s dais, keenly aware of the disparity in their positions. The Kings and Lord were on their thrones, at the head of their respective Kingdoms while he stood as the sole servant, a tool to be used.

Behind him, he imagined their eyes, how they must linger on him and wonder at his involvement even now.

His shoulders were a straight line, head level, and he held himself still. What the Kings thought or how they might react was ultimately inconsequential.

All that mattered were Lucifer’s orders.

Lucifer lounged with an easy authority, his wings spread wide and gleaming on both side of his throne. His knees crossed in front of him, and his hands curled along the armrests. The sharp scales on his knuckles and wrists gave a resounding crack, fracturing apart and consuming more of his skin. _Power_ emanated, hanging onto every feather, every atom, every photon of his merciless glory.

Azram expected a low murmur of agreement or some sort of response from the Kings, but there was nothing. They were waiting for Lucifer’s decree, his call to action.

Lucifer smiled with venomous insidiousness, drinking in the power given to him, the reverence he had taken and claimed for himself so long ago when he’d led his rebellion. “It is not yet time.”

One of the Kings faltered. In the oppressive quiet, there was a slight click. It was the sound of someone swallowing in an attempt to maintain their silence. One of Azram’s ears twitched, but he resolutely kept it from swiveling towards the offending demon.

But Lucifer noticed. His lips curled higher for a moment in a haughty, satisfied smirk, but with unusual mercy, he didn’t look at the King responsible nor did he address their apparent disagreement.

He needed, now more than ever, for everyone in the courtroom to be on his side. Dissatisfaction would bleed from the King into their Kingdoms, and Lucifer couldn’t afford a rebellion.

Azram savored the irony in stoic silence.

“But it is coming,” Lucifer said, smile falling away, replaced with a dire gravity that struck a heavy chord in Azram’s chest. “Armageddon begins on my command and not a moment before. Heaven tried to provoke us into moving at their pace, but we have never bent to their will, and I don’t intend for us to start.” There was undeniable steel in his voice, an unspoken implication aimed at the demons on the other daises. Then, firmly, he said: “From now on, we are no longer in the business of thwarting Heaven.”

That got a reaction. Behind him, Azram heard a gasp, a growl, the hum of someone about to speak before they thought better of it, and finally, a voice of dissent.

“My Lord Satan,” Beelzebub buzzed lowly. “I don’t think it’s _wise_ to allow Heaven to go unchecked.”

“Beelzebub,” Lucifer purred, and the sound slid like a knife down Azram’s spine. “My dear friend.” He let the old affection and intimacy swing alone in the air, sharp as a sword and threatening to cut. The unpleasant familiarity prickled across Azram’s skin, and he tried not to show visible relief when Lucifer finally continued. “I don’t care what Heaven is doing now. They made their move; they likely think it’s done something for them.” He scoffed, “Let them rest on their blessed laurels. Let that Pride swallow them whole.”

The fire in his eyes blazed brighter, and the scales on his body burned, smoke coiling from where they met his skin and snaking into the air around him. “In the meantime, we’re going to _move_. We’re going to mold Earth into a battlefield that favors us.” Lucifer’s voice did not boom or echo; it didn’t need to for its gravity to drag them to this present moment, to the beginning of the end. “We’re going to nurture the evil that exists in humanity, and Heaven is going to scramble to keep up with us.” He lifted his head, imperious, commanding, in utter inalienable control. “Every Kingdom is to begin sending more operatives to Earth. I want Hell to be everywhere Heaven thinks to look. Let them take whatever petty victories they can prise from our hands, and let them be ignorant to our greater plan.”

Beelzebub hummed, buzzed in zir throat, and said nothing for long, unbearable moments.

Azram could feel the crawl of the Kings’ attention. Dread curled heavily in his stomach, the unspoken question choking in the back of his throat. He, too, wanted to know what Lucifer expected of him, and the number of assumptions that whirled wildly through his head climbed uselessly higher. Lucifer could place him in any number of impossible positions. He could put Azram as the leader of the Hellish operatives on Earth, a buffer between the demons and their Kings. He could equally demand that Azram serve the Kings however they pleased as punishment for failing to convert Judas. Regardless, Azram knew what he would be above all things: a spy, a tool to keep the relative peace of Hell, used to root out dissent and maneuvered to take whatever he could of the backlash to any of Lucifer’s plans.

“And what’s that plan, my Lord? And how does it involve such a weak demon?” Beelzebub asked finally, zir tone accusing, condescending, cutting through Azram without a second thought. “You must have a purpose for him to be here.”

Instead of answering zir directly, Lucifer turned his attention squarely to where Azram stood before him, and the weight of it crushed him so suddenly that he had to adjust his stance lest he be driven to his knees. “My pet,” Lucifer murmured, something twisted and adjacent to affection in it. “You have witnessed man-made miracles.”

He remembered, desperately, the girl in Bethlehem who, despite all logic and reason, had quelled the wailing of a child with nothing more than a drum. Azram had witnessed inhuman feats of magic, miracles woven from willpower and some lingering trace of God’s touch.

“Yes, my Lord.”

Lucifer lifted a hand, and the shadows from the courtroom crawled along the floor and coalesced in his palm. They twisted and formed a small humanoid figure. “One day,” he said with chilling certainty, “my son will walk the Earth. When he does, he will not walk alone.” Around the initial shadow, more sprang up, the number changing with every flicker of light, the variables unknown and malleable. “As we stoke the fire of evil on Earth, that power inherent to humanity will find ways to manifest, and when it does, I want you there to claim it in my name.” He curled his fingers in, clutching his fist, and the darkness seeped from between his fingers, bleeding back onto the floor. “By whatever means necessary.”

Azram saw the purpose immediately despite the vagueness of his task. Heaven had used Jesus’s humanity to draw other humans to him and to emphasize his inherent divinity. Lucifer was going to exploit humanity in a different way, using their unique place in the middle of the infernal and the divine to give Hell further leverage. If Lucifer could claim Earth for Hell before the Great War even began, the real fight would be over in mere centuries.

The job would take time. Millennia, if he had to guess. He would spend thousands of years on Earth searching for forces strong enough to turn the tide of war. It would be a temporary reprieve from Hell before the rest of eternity arrived to claim him. It was a reward and a punishment rolled into one.

“Of course,” he said evenly, bowing reverently as his wings unfolded and exposed themselves in instant, absolute submission. “It would be an honor.”

Azram’s body formed, rebuilding atom by atom, cell by cell, no more his than anything else. Another gift, another prison.

Lucifer didn’t bother to remind him of the price of failure.

### 37 AD

Hell fell away piece by piece. Azram could feel his shattered body reassemble, brought together and grounded again on Earth. Azram’s hands shook, a sharp, lingering ache lancing through his body from where it originated between his thighs. Lucifer’s personal revelry had lasted a year, not that Azram had been counting every agonizing second while barely connected to his body. He could still taste the horrible, sweet tang of Lucifer’s blood, could practically feel the sharp edges of Lucifer’s scales against his teeth and tongue, cutting into him even as he bit down, desperate to cause some amount of pain for every bit that he took.

A miracle washed over him, minor bruises and cuts fading and leaving only the well-worn scars that had been torn open again and the brand that Lucifer had replaced the moment Azram had sat tamely at his feet before the Kings began to break the news to the rest of Hell.

The smell of saltwater flooded his nose, and the distant cry of seagulls woke him to the reality of being back beneath an open sky, back on Earth for however long it lasted. A shuddering breath drew through his lungs, filling him with something more than despair and promising a reprieve if he’d only take it.

Azram’s feet drew him along the busy road, black robes fading to a pale, sleeved chilton. A cloak of blue manifested and draped itself over his shoulders before wrapping comfortably around the curves of his body. Sandals formed between one step and the next.

Within moments, Azram found himself at the door of a tavern, slipping through the crowd to the bar.

Within a few more, Azram had a jug in his trembling hands. The wine inside had been diluted for sale, but when it flowed over his tongue, it was sweet and bitter, strong, miraculously untouched.

The world fell away in a dizzying blur, and Azram welcomed it.


	26. the reconciliation.

It had taken real strength of will, a deeply-obstinate refusal of reality to keep himself going long after a human body would have given up and long after his infernal powers would have purged the effects of the alcohol from his system. Days passed in a blur as he slunk from one tavern to the next. He spent the time between openings deliberately holding onto intoxication, fighting off sobriety until he could get his hands on the next drink. He tried, in rare fits of desperation, to turn water into wine, but it always soured beyond recognition, both in taste and in memory. Jesus had only told Azram the story of his first miracle once, but it stuck with Azram. Jesus, for better or worse, stuck to him like a burr.

The new pressure on his shoulders was a strange thing. The task in front of him was vast and vague — Lucifer wouldn’t be expecting a report for at least a decade, and the chances of someone from Hell arriving with pertinent information so soon was infinitesimally small. He had time until eternity. He took another drink.

Weeks crawled by, and Azram was still solidly drunk when news arrived to the city in which he’d been lurking. It was remarkable, really, how quickly the revelry and celebrations began in the name of the new emperor. The streets were crowded into the early hours, music and drink flowing, and Azram heard the distant cries of animals being sacrificed before they were ultimately silenced.

A special type of misery squeezed in his chest, amplified by the rapture of the humans around him. Azram had always been keenly aware of the differences between them, how decidedly inhuman he was, but he had never felt more disconnected from the people around him. It was a subtle rebellion, looking at their bright, clean-shaven faces and encouraging a beard to grow, bushy, curly, and hiding the tilt of his sneer. There was comfort in obfuscating his expressions and in setting himself so decidedly apart from them, even if it was unwise. Throughout history, he had done his level best to blend in with the culture around him, taking his cues from humanity at every turn. To reject their norm was to invite trouble.

It was inevitable, really, that someone would finally _see_ Azram, bringing him into focus instead of allowing attention to slide easily off him.

The man blinked at the stranger in the corner, pale and wild-faced, intoxicated far beyond what was socially acceptable yet unobtrusive, simply enjoying the moment. Azram blinked over the rim of his cup, braced for conflict and more unwanted attention, but the human ordered another cup for himself and swayed over silently with the certain step of someone who felt unreservedly welcome.

The man slumped into the seat opposite him, cheeks flushed, eyes alight with something like _kinship_. He brightened. “Your devotion to Bacchus is a thing of beauty.”

Azram had passing knowledge of many man-made gods. His first Bacchanalia had been centuries ago in Greece when such rituals were in service to Dionysus, and it hadn’t been his last. The god’s name changed and so did his rituals, but they were easy enough to find if one went looking. With bittersweet fondness, Azram remembered swearing confidence in the angel at his side one night away from the Library in Alexandria. With his word, Corvai had been allowed into the temple in the midst of the raucous festival. The reverence and worship found in utter, unrestrained hedonism had been a source of surprise and delight for Corvai.

Despite his history of dabbling in religions not meant for him, he wasn’t sure what, exactly, had given him the impression that Azram was a devotee of any god, much less Bacchus.

As desperately as Azram wanted to be left alone, he enjoyed the idea of mindless indulgence, the promise of days or weeks of sensory overload. There would be no more nights spent desperately fighting off sobriety, lingering between taverns, counting the hours until they reopened.

He tipped his head down before glancing up through his eyelashes, demure and modest. “A lone worshiper makes a poor congregation for any god. Much less someone so—” Azram trailed off, the word flitting just out of reach. He swayed in his seat, brow furrowed as he reached for it while refusing to sober up. “So,” he attempted again, frowning immediately when the rest of his sentence failed to materialize.

The human smiled, biting the hook even with inadequate bait. “You don’t need to be alone.”

“No? I’m afraid our god’s fallen out of general goodwill, as it were.”

“All the more reason to worship. If we don’t tend to him, who will?”

A fortifying breath filled his lungs, and he lifted his own cup to meet the other’s. “I’ll drink to that.”

* * *

There were rules and expectations even among the chaotic revelry of Bacchus’s followers. It meant there were very few surprises. Gluttony and Lust flowed as freely as the music and wine.

All he had to do was play the part and the relentless drag of time finally blurred beyond recognition among the scent of heavy perfume and sex, lost to a myriad of indulgences. Sweet smoke often drifted through the air, housed in his lungs until they burned. He became fond of crectic wine even though he rarely let the opium-laced drink carry him fully to unconsciousness.

Once, he sampled a serving of dreamfish, and he sobered up for the first time in weeks as he purged the toxins from his body in a mad rush until the hallucination of sharp, midnight scales and fangs gleaming with the first sparks of both divine and infernal flame vanished from the luxurious shadows that stretched across the floor.

After that, it simply wasn’t the same. He became aware of the internal politics of the makeshift temples and how they were affected by the ongoing celebrations outside. People came and went to their lives beyond these walls, and many returned with news and elation of the new emperor’s rules. Those that did not often planted deep roots nearby while carrying the fruits of their labors.

It was not, in Azram’s opinion, a blessing to bring new lives into this miserable world or to create a new vessel for a soul that would one day be shunted to Heaven or Hell for the rest of eternity. There was something deeply, demonically _satisfying_ about inflicting fertility upon those that prayed for it. After all, the best deals a demon could make were the ones that gave the contractee what they asked for while ensuring their misery both on Earth and in the afterlife. He was simply being clever. Economical, really.

A mounting irritation wheedled beneath his skin, sobriety nipping at his heels. Perhaps, he mused, a change of scenery might rid him of it.

Thus, some months after returning to the Earth, Azram finally left the first city.

* * *

It was not exactly a surprise that he was caught by someone much less tolerant the second time around. Luck had never been his forte.

“Think you’ve had enough,” a gruff voice said. Rough hands pried him away from his cup, hot and heavy and as unwanted as everything else in the Satan-forsaken universe. A reflex that had long gone dormant in his sober mind sparked. 

Azram had been a Cherub once, a soldier and servant above all other things. But from the start, he had wielded a weapon. He hadn’t been _made_ to throw punches though he still had a good go of it. Bone and cartilage cracked under the weight of his knuckles, something satisfying recoiling up his arm before he was grabbed by more people and pulled away. He was outnumbered, outmatched because he refused to sober up, and left with the option to either level the entire tavern with a demonic miracle or surrender.

The few tattered remains of his pride wouldn’t allow him to give up so easily, not to humans, not like this, but once the legionnaires arrived, it was over. Strong arms went around his, wrenching him away from the crowd. He bared his teeth, eyes wild as he struggled almost mindlessly, but thousands of years of submission kept him from fighting back with any sort of real power. He let it happen.

A legionary pinned him to the ground, his knee wedged against Azram’s back, his hand fisted in his white curls as he pressed the demon’s face into the stone road outside the tavern. 

Finally, reluctantly, Azram sobered up, the alcohol sluggishly clearing his system and leaving a bitter taste in its wake.

He was unfortunately completely sober when he heard a familiar voice overhead, swanning in from another direction. “What’s the problem here, then?”

“_Tribunus_—” one of the soldiers started.

“Ah,” he tsked, cutting the legionary off with the cold command. “Needed a dozen of you to handle one drunk?”

“He was fighting like a man possessed!”

“Hardly,” Azram said dryly, grimacing at the dirt in his mouth and the lingering thirst for sweet oblivion that had been cruelly taken from him. He needed it now more than ever.

“Shut it!” The man on top of him dug his knee into Azram’s spine with a snarl. The hand on his head curled as grit dug into his skin.

The beat of ensuing silence lay heavy between them, but Corvai pulled himself together quickly. “Think we can let this one go, can’t we?” A touch of divinity flowed over his tongue, mercy bleeding into the Romans around them. “What’s one pathetic man to the might of the Empire?”

Azram huffed into the dust, but he could hardly resist the urge to blaspheme in the angel’s presence. “May the gods have mercy.”

Corvai snapped, “Come on, up off of him. Go enjoy the rest of the day. I’ll keep an eye on him.”

“_Tribunus_,” someone protested.

“Go on. The _legatus_ won’t even notice, an’ if the centurions say anything, send ‘em my way.”

Azram felt the divine compulsion fall from Corvai’s lips, and a shiver wracked unbidden up Azram’s spine, shadows of Judas and Gabriel lurking behind his eyes. The legionary who had pinned him down gentled immediately, pulling away without further complaint. There was a brief rush of divine power over both angel and demon, and the attention they’d gathered slid neatly off. Around them, the crowd began to disperse, unaware of why they’d gathered in the first place.

Azram pushed himself up and to his feet. He examined the dirt staining the front of his tunic with a sneer, aware of the filth spread across one cheek from where he’d been ground into the filthy road. He reached up to banish the dirt away, but it fell off of him before the infernal power within him so much as flickered. Flakes peeled away, swirling and vanishing into nothingness, leaving him untouched and perfectly clean. The wrinkles in his clothes smoothed themselves to something acceptable, and soon, all that remained was the faint throbbing across his knuckles and the scrape of his cheek. The unwanted intimacy roiled in his stomach.

He brushed off the front of his chilton anyway, idly straightening it before his eyes flicked up to Corvai.

Corvai was shrouded in black, toga and tunic both unusually dark, the color of mourning. A golden pin glinted dully over his heart, shaped like a twisting serpent that was eating its own tail. His hair was dark and cropped shorter than Azram had ever seen it. The sunlight caught subtle tints of red of buried in the black but glinted more noticeably off the golden laurels that marked the angel as a celebrated soldier of the Roman Legion.

Perched on the bridge of his nose were a pair of spectacles with dark, polished gems wrapped in the frame.

It was like looking at a stranger.

Azram was not often at a loss for words. He was, in fact, quite proud of his measured responses, his carefully-considered conversation, how he could steer even the Devil without having to lift more than his tongue. But what was there to say now? What point was there in gloating, tricking, confusing, or wheedling when the end was in sight, bringing an eternity without him?

Corvai looked away, arms crossed as he watched the humans go about their insignificant lives. “You were right,” he said finally.

Of course. Corvai didn’t know how near they were, how dire the circumstances. He couldn’t unless another demon had tipped off Heaven first. “I often am,” he reminded. “What was it this time?”

Corvai bristled subtly, shoulders drawing up, spine straightened as he pointedly looked at anywhere but Azram. “He wasn’t the same when he came back.”

Azram chuckled dryly. “How would you know?” Corvai’s head snapped to the left, and though his eyes were hidden behind his shades, Azram imagined he must be glaring. “You weren’t there. Heaven had some bigger project than Their son for you?” Corvai’s lip curled in a sneer but he said nothing. Azram pressed, the anger simmering in his gut, “Eight years is a long time to abandon a human. Especially one destined to die so _young_.”

Corvai snapped, “And for thirteen years, where were you?”

“Hell. If I recall correctly, you put me there.”

“‘Cause you were going to kill him!”

Azram smiled, sharp and malicious, devoid of any hint of friendly intent. “What difference did it make, Corvai, if he died at twelve or thirty-three? At least it would have been painless.”

“You—” he started then stopped, swallowing around the words. Softer, he concluded, “You don’t understand.”

The irony caught him by surprise and he scoffed. “I understand perfectly well, angel. Your lot needed him to suffer. You believe there was a reason. I don’t.”

Corvai turned his head away as if it could hide his frown. His laurels glinted in the sun.

Azram said, “Not even five years later, and you’ve thrown your lot in with the ones who killed him. _Tribunus militum_ — you’re an _officer_. I see that Good doesn’t rest.”

Corvai’s lips parted for a moment before his fangs dug into the soft flesh instead. Eventually he ground out, “I have my orders.”

Azram huffed primly. “So do I.”

From this angle, Azram could see Corvai’s eyes. He saw them dart upward, saw the way they narrowed ever-so slightly. There was something hard in them, something cold and angry. Azram braced for Corvai’s familiar fury, but it didn’t come. Instead, almost casually, he asked, “Y’know what I believe?”

“I have a fair idea of it,” Azram said despite the fact that it hadn’t really sounded like a question.

Corvai barked an insincere laugh, smiling sharply. “I think this is _pointless_.”

Azram blinked. “What?”

“Think about it, Ram. Everything we do—? The War’s coming one way or another, Earth’ll be destroyed or taken over, and then _what_? Eternity? What’s that do for— for any of _them_, much less us—?”

Azram moved in a flash, one hand tenderly cupping Corvai’s head while the other plastered firmly over his still-moving mouth. “You can’t _say_ things like that,” he said in a low voice. The earth felt solid under his feet, but his wings unfolded anyway, casting Corvai in shadows as well as preparing for divine judgement. Perhaps if he flew… Well, there was no way of _knowing_ what would happen, was there? It was certainly worth a try. “If They hear you — bless, if the _Archangels_ do, do you know what’ll happen to you?”

Corvai tossed his head, shades bouncing on his nose and landing askew but Azram held him tighter, pressing fingertip bruises into his cheek. “You don’t want to Fall, angel. You really don’t.”

Corvai glared over the rim of his shades before bringing a hand up and clicking his fingers. The busy town square fell away in a blur, leaving them in a sparsely-decorated room that looked more suited for… well, for Lucifer, than anyone. He’d always favored decorating with darkness to emphasize his own brilliance. Corvai appeared several feet away from him.

“Maybe I _do_,” he spat while baring his fangs. “D’you even remember what being an angel is _like_?”

“Maybe not, but I certainly recall what it was like to lose everything I’d ever had.” Lucifer had made sure of that, making him relive the Fall time and time again. “You cannot _comprehend_—”

“Oh, can’t I? I’m telling you, there’s no _difference_.”

“I beg to differ,” Azram snarled. “Do you know, I spent three years torturing one of Jesus’s followers?” Corvai’s eyes widened. “Ended up down there with us; Satan decided he got special treatment. I’m not exactly in a position to tell him no.”

“But— that’s my _point_. How did one of Their son’s followers end up in Hell?”

“It was the one who turned him over to the guards. Bit of a sin, that.”

“Is it? I mean, it was Heaven’s idea.”

The lie flowed as easily as had the thousands of ones before it: “He was motivated by Greed. It only took a pouch full of coins to hand over his teacher.”

Corvai groaned, rolling his head back. “But it was still part of the Plan—!”

“Maybe the Plan is more focused on the,” Azram waved a hand in a vague circle, “grand scheme of things rather than the minutiae. Whether he was there or not, Jesus was going to die. Since he stuck his nose in, he belongs to us.”

It made a depressing amount of sense for something he’d spun up on the spot. Azram distantly remembered to tuck his wings away as he watched where Corvai paced around his small room.

“Maybe,” Corvai conceded. “But— it’s not like you haven’t pointed out all of this before, how much of human suffering is because of Heaven.”

Azram chuckled lightly. “My dear, I was doing my _job_. It was never my intention to make you Fall.”

“Just doubt,” Corvai supposed.

Azram gave a slight shrug. “It’s in my nature, you see.”

Bitterly and under his breath, Corvai muttered, “Apparently, mine too.”

Azram shook his head lightly, tearing his eyes from the angel to his room. “Where did you put us? Somewhere in the _castrum_?”

“Knew we’d get some privacy here.”

“My,” Azram murmured. “You’ll give me all the wrong ideas, Corvai.”

“Don’t,” Corvai said warningly, but the heat went out of his voice and the tension drained from his body. “So— that’s where you’ve been?” He gave a slight nod downward. “Can’t say I blame you for getting roaring drunk when you got back.”

“And what about you?” Azram tilted his head. “I doubt you went from that room in Jerusalem to Rome.”

“Near enough.” Corvai ran his fingers back through his hair only to encounter the laurels set among the waves. He picked them up and flicked his wrist, sending them sailing from his hand. They vanished mid-flight and reappeared on his desk. “Had to help Gabriel announce that Jesus was back. Part of an ongoing…” Corvai hissed through his teeth, “thing.”

“Dare I ask?”

“Nah, s’better if you don’t. Don’t really like lying.”

“Really,” Azram said icily. “Because you had no trouble in Bethlehem.”

Corvai scoffed. “When would’ve been a good time to tell you? _‘Oi, Ram, know you’ve made a deal with me, cheers, but the kid might be Their son. Just a heads up.’_ Think that would’ve worked?”

“‘Might’ be?” Azram scoffed. “You can’t tell the truth even now?”

“That,” Corvai said, rounding on him with a pointed finger, “is _not_ my fault. S’parently need to know information, and I didn’t need to know. Knew what we were _telling_ people, knew not everyone was s’posed to believe it.”

Azram’s brow creased. “You’ve been their operative for this long — since the beginning, really — and they don’t keep you well-informed?”

Corvai huffed. “Doubt Hell’s very forthcoming.”

“You’d be surprised.” Though he, of course, occupied a very specific niche that came with a few perks and a multitude of drawbacks. “Even so, it is Hell.”

“An’ I’m telling you. Heaven’s not much different.”

“I’m the one who’s been to both,” Azram reminded him with a bright smile. “Ergo, I believe I’m the expert.”

“You would,” even as he said it, something like a smile tugged at his lips. “So what’re you working on now?”

The familiar flow of conversation came to a sudden halt, his duty looming again over his head. He couldn’t tell Corvai, naturally, but he needed to give him _something_. It was far more suspicious to say nothing than to lie.

At least he could buy a little time, perhaps a little more peace. Azram tutted briskly, “Manners, angel. Time was you’d provide dinner before asking such an audacious question.”

Corvai gave a lopsided smirk. “Should at least put the effort in, eh?”

“It certainly couldn’t hurt.”

“I know a place in the city.”

Azram smiled, “After you.”

Corvai plucked the laurels off his desk, settling them again in his hair. He clicked his fingers, and they reappeared on a busy market street. The sun was quickly sinking towards the western horizon, painting the narrow street in a stark contrast of fire-bright color and shadow. Corvai nudged Azram briefly with his elbow, and the two set off together, steps quickly matching.

They arrived at a bustling restaurant that truthfully wasn’t much nicer or altogether different from the tavern Azram had been thrown out of earlier in the day. The smell of seafood cooking stirred in his stomach, and Corvai brightened at Azram’s side as he looked over the plates and bowls carried by the other patrons with obvious envy.

Azram was so caught up in the questions of both food and duty that he didn’t notice the way the cook waved them over as he took notice of Corvai.

“_Tribunus_ Crowley, we are honored as always to see you in our humble establishment.”

That got Azram’s attention. He blinked away from the variety of ways to break his extended fast and up at Corvai who didn’t seem to notice, chatting away pleasantly until they eventually selected food and drink and settled in at a private table.

“Crowley,” Azram said, rolling the word over his tongue, testing the weight of it. In the corner of his eye, Corvai straightened, attentive but subtly shifting, uncomfortable.

“D’you like it?”

It occurred to him to be cruel. It occurred to him, but—

“Does it matter what I think?”

Corvai shrugged, scoffed in a way that was utterly unconvincing. “Maybe,” he muttered. “Not really, I mean, but…” He trailed off and made an inarticulate noise in his throat.

Azram picked up his cup of wine and mused to himself. He took a slow drink, savoring the taste and enjoying the way Corvai swayed forward, watching him with such open earnestness. As he lowered it, he admitted, “I think it suits you. Certainly more than Abel does me, in any case.”

“I dunno,” Corvai admitted, very nearly glowing. “S’kinda grown on me.”

They dined together and talked about nothing important until the restaurant readied to close, and they left under a sky of scattered, gleaming stars.


	27. the bridge.

“It’s really a matter of reciprocation, my dear.”

The candlelight flickered harshly across Corvai’s sharp cheekbones and glanced off the lenses that formed a barrier between them. Azram knew the set of his shoulders, the tilt of his head — Corvai’s body language was so familiar that his shades failed to hide much. Azram met his glare with a slight smile, his hands folded politely in his lap. The table between them was strewn with empty dishes, and around them was a buzz of conversation and movement as the restaurant — the seventh they’d sampled in the month since their reunion — continued to run.

Azram continued, “I could tell you, but then I’m afraid that you would have something, and I wouldn’t. That hardly looks favorable, especially if it gets back to my superiors.”

“You could trust me.”

Azram laughed slightly. “Trust is a rare commodity among demons, you know.”

“Then don’t trust me as a demon,” Corvai said as he rolled his shoulders in a slight shrug, projecting an air of carelessness and ease that he must have practiced.

Azram scoffed. “I believe I’ve told you before — my job is all that I am.”

“An’ I told you then: you’re _wrong_.”

His good humor faded, leaving a bitter taste in his mouth as he remembered that however far they’d come from that first fight, Corvai still didn’t — _couldn’t_ — really know him. If he did, he would have seen through the countless lies and manipulation down to his core that was as rotten and evil as every demon before him. 

Noticing the shift in his mood, Corvai’s head cocked slightly for the barest moment before he turned his attention to the table before him. Slim fingers drifted across the woodgrain, and Azram watched as empty stems regrew their grapes, as bones were encased again in steaming, seasoned meat. Crumbs skittered across the table, coming together and blooming into a new loaf of bread. Corvai looked away from the act of creation, artfully distracted and aloof as if he’d seen something more interesting in the flow of humans around them.

He spoke, voice low and secretive. “S’all temporary, this. Heaven wants me to get closer to this boy, Nero. Relative of the Emperor’s. Makes the most sense to keep my head down, rise up through the ranks slowly so it’s less suspicious to your lot an’ to the humans when I’m voted into the Senate. The _castrum_ shouldn’t get involved in anything more than a domestic dispute. Lot of time spent biding, but— I prefer the proper channels.”

“Do you?” Azram said.

Corvai’s lips twitched into a smirk. “I mean— Don’t get me wrong, something to be said for the mysterious stranger who says all the right things at the right time. But putting the time in?” He glanced back at Azram across the table. His sharp, fanged grin gleamed in the candlelight. “Patience is a virtue. An’ less likely for me to end up with my throat slit.”

He plucked a grape from the rejuvenated stems, rolling it across the tops of his fingers before popping it into his mouth.

Azram was the one who had brought up reciprocity. It occurred to him to say nothing, to remind Corvai what one was likely to get when dealing with demons, but if he wanted Corvai’s continued cooperation… Azram scoffed and rolled his eyes. “I’m waiting,” he admitted, “for a sign or a signal or some…” He waved a hand in an aimless circle. “Something.”

“Some something?” Corvai teased.

“My instructions are vague,” Azram said, annoyance bleeding through.

“An’ what happens after whatever it is you’re waiting for?”

“Broadly speaking, Armageddon.” Azram plucked a grape for himself, rolling it on his tongue before squishing it between his teeth.

Corvai froze, and the sounds of the world around them fell away. For a moment, Azram felt trapped, caged, unstable, wondering if he’d somehow misread how much he could give away while still holding his cards close to his chest. “Armageddon,” Corvai said finally, strained and quiet.

“That _is_ what we’re doing here, angel.” He blinked. “Unless your lot’s changed course.”

“No!” he said a bit quickly. “No, course we haven’t. That’s still the goal.”

“It could be a ways off yet. And, of course, I don’t know how this leads to the end of all things. It’s all one small piece of the bigger puzzle.”

The tension rushed out of Corvai with a desperate laugh. “Jesus _Christ_, Ram, you could’ve led with that.”

The initial burst of rage was tempered by the delicious sensation of an angel deliberately sinning. It washed over him, lighting his nerves. There was a strange itch to his teeth, a twitch that curled through his fingers with the urge to pull those sweet words from Corvai again and again and again. “Blasphemy,” he tutted, his breath shaking slightly. “From an angel? My word.”

Corvai shrugged, but there was a pleased flush to his face. “Maybe there’s more to me than angel, eh?”

It was leading, there wasn’t a doubt in Azram’s mind. Perhaps it was a dangerous concession, a slippery slope best not to tread. “I’ve always said so.”

The shock was worth taking the obvious bait. Corvai squawked, “To who?!”

“I really don’t see how that’s relevant,” Azram said breezily, smiling sharply at Corvai’s continued indignation.

They continued for hours more. The conversation never came back to the dreary topic of Armageddon.

### 39 AD

Water lapped at the sides of the ships, wood creaking as it flexed and settled to bob once more in the Gulf. There was scarcely a cloud in the blue sky, and the bright sunlight gleamed off the surface of the water in disorienting flashes. Azram let the sparks of light dig into his pale eyes without blinking as dread pressed down on his shoulders.

Planks stretched from one tethered ship to the next, the bridge rising and falling as if the water beneath breathed.

Azram wondered idly what would happen if one of the tethers snapped, if a plank slid out of place, if he could get away with causing a small tragedy despite the commendations given to him the last time he’d been to Hell.

His mere presence in the Empire meant that Hell assumed he’d been involved in Emperor Caligula’s declining mental state. From the execution of his family to the monument of Pride in front of him and every horrible thing in between — Hell thought it’d been Azram’s work.

So had Corvai at first.

Corvai stood with other members of the Legion, shrouded in the voluminous folds of his dark toga. It was strange to see him standing at attention, every bit a soldier despite the deviation from his original function. Most angels were soldiers for Heaven, created as warriors and protectors of untold celestial strength. Seraphim were made of softer stuff as agents of creation rather than destruction.

There was another glare that glanced through Azram’s eyes, and his pupils momentarily turned into rectangles before he forced them back into circles.

The breastplate was old and bloodied by a decade of unending war. It belonged to a conqueror and most assuredly not to the arrogant boy who pranced along the water’s edge astride his favorite horse. To humans, Caligula was an inspiration and a source of fear. To Azram, he was a petty tyrant whose creative cruelty would one day be his undoing on Earth and in Hell.

With a wild grin, the Emperor spurred his steed on, and the horse jumped from the shore to the floating bridge with a clatter of hooves. His horse shook its head, trying to see beyond the leather blinders that narrowed its view to the bridge and nothing beyond it. Even from this distance, Azram could feel the swell of Caligula’s cruel Pride as he reigned the horse harshly back, restricting its movement and sight until it began to walk uneasily along the floating bridge.

A cheer went up from the crowded shoreline with plenty of people pushing to follow Caligula as he rode victorious over the Gulf.

“It would be a shame if something were to happen,” Azram mused idly when Corvai stepped into his familiar spot just to Azram’s right. “All that armor. And, you know, I don’t think he can swim to begin with.”

“Don’t,” Corvai hissed, “tempt me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” He glanced to his side, angling up to see Corvai as he watched Caligula. “I didn’t tempt him to do this.”

“Know you didn’t.” The immediate and implicit trust gripped tightly at his chest, but Corvai continued before he could read much more into it. “This’s been a long time coming.”

“Oh?”

“His uncle had a soothsayer.” Azram blinked, and Corvai’s jaw tightened as he clarified, “Sort of a prophet. Said Caligula had a better chance of riding his horse across the water than ever becoming Emperor.”

Azram scoffed. “Wasn’t a very good prophet, then, was he?”

Corvai chuckled. “S’pose he wasn’t. Little bastard’s done both.”

For long moments, they stood side by side, saying nothing as Caligula shrank into a dot. The crowd began to thin as some followed and others simply finished with the spectacle, returning to their lives beyond the triumph of their ruler. But a thought nagged at him. “Don’t most prophets simply possess understanding?”

A beat of silence, then, “Come again?”

Azram folded his hands behind him, listening to the water lap against the shore. “Nebuchadnezzar had his dreams, but _Daniel_ explained what they meant. And there was a Pharoah, too, and another of yours who was an interpreter rather than the direct recipient.”

“Huh. That actually… sounds about right.”

“So have the rules changed, or—?”

“Well,” Corvai interrupted, “like you said. Thrasyllus must not’ve been very good. After all, the Emperor’s riding across the water as we speak. Don’t even know if he had visions, really. Definitely not divine.”

Azram laughed lightly, “Not infernal, either, I’m afraid. I’ve gotten nothing but praise since Caligula ascended to the throne and began executing people. If he wasn’t supposed to, I think I would’ve heard about it.”

“So, Thrasyllus was a liar.” Corvai shrugged and adjusted his toga when it started to slip down his shoulder. “Whassit matter?”

“Or,” Azram supposed, “he had visions that had nothing to do with either Hell or Heaven. Would explain why there was no interpreter to give him the right message.” He rolled his shoulders forward until they each gave a minute pop, shedding some of the tension before he eased back into standing at parade rest.

“What good’s that gonna do for them?” Corvai asked with clear agitation, tipping his chin to the side to indicate the remaining humans around them.

“Oh,” Azram said pleasantly, “it doesn’t. But it is interesting, isn’t it?” Corvai cursed under his breath with a vile hiss. Azram smiled. “But what if — just in theory, mind you — what if they can see some part of the bigger picture that we can’t?”

“Seems pretty bloody ineffable. Right up Their alley.”

“Rather.” Azram leaned slightly, his shoulder barely nudging Corvai’s arm before the angel crossed them, glaring sourly up at the sky again. Azram straightened again with a sigh. “It would certainly be quite the jape on Their part. All that secrecy from the higher ups and lower downs being absolutely useless when it _matters_.”

Corvai put the pieces together with an audible click of his throat. He swallowed and his eyes slightly narrowed.

Azram thought to press, to subtly nudge Corvai along. It was best for both of them, really, to keep an eye on potential human interference in the Great Plan. It was certainly something they could accomplish better together than alone. But he let the silence stand between them, nearly comfortable and broken by the cry of gulls and the subtle sounds of boats creaking and water meeting the shore. Finally, Corvai gave a bitter laugh. “You’re unbelievable.”

“Perhaps. But I’m not wrong.”

“You think that’s how Hell’s gonna send you a sign? Through a human’s _dreams_?”

“Goodness, no.” He feigned a confused frown. “Hell will send couriers, omens, and portents as they see fit. I simply think it would be to _our_ benefit to be informed, even in ways our employers would rather we weren’t.”

Corvai scoffed, glaring out of the corner of his eye. “Remind me: what was it the apple did, again? Spread blissful ignorance and contentment?” With a slight sneer, he demanded, “You been down there learning from the best?”

Simply because he could, because petty rebellions were one of the few joys he had, Azram repeated dryly, “The _best_? Hardly. When was the last time he did anything?”

Corvai smiled sharply. “You tell me.”

The words fell from his lips without a second thought as he leveled his gaze back out at the bridge. “Make me.”

Anticipation prickled across the fine hairs at his nape, and Azram became suddenly aware of his heart. Usually, he paid it very little mind, letting it simply work without interference, pumping his body’s unnecessary blood with a perfect, unhurried rhythm. Now, for some reason, every thump pulsed through him like an echo, simultaneously too heavy and too light, as if he might drown or float away at the same time. His breath caught in his chest, and, without thinking, he lifted a hand to curl over the cloth of his chilton, pressing the heel of his palm against where his heart was caged.

“Don’t tempt me,” Corvai breathed, and it sounded like begging, like an earnest and honest plea for mercy.

“I shan’t,” he lied. He couldn’t help it, of course. It was simply his nature.

* * *

The words were still lingering hours later, as the sun dipped towards the western horizon.

“Don’t tell me,” Corvai said, “that you’re gonna walk all the way back?”

“What else would I do? Fly?” Azram snapped. “I’m sure that wouldn’t draw any unwanted attention.”

“Dip into Hell, come out the other side.”

“Oh,” Azram said, “I’ll just nip into Hell, shall I, and risk getting pulled in for a performance review I’m _sure_ I’ve forgotten, which will last the rest of the year if—” He caught himself, “If my superiors realize I’m readily at their disposal.”

“Thought you were enjoying getting all of those commendations,” Corvai smirked.

“Please. The last useful thing Hell gave me was a pit of boiling sulfur.”

Corvai laughed, the sound bright and beautiful. Azram smiled indulgently and prepared himself to dig in, to press and wheedle and ask if Corvai was _enjoying_ how bleak an existence demons had. Before he could say anything, there was a series of shrill, frightened whinnies.

They’d been walking towards the stables, but Azram hadn’t really been paying attention. He knew, of course, that Corvai rode horses as a legionnaire, but it had somehow never registered that there would be a specific beast that belonged to him as an officer. Azram blinked at the stalls that were half full of agitated beasts, flighty and panicking as the two off them approached.

Before he could even start to wonder why the horses would startle at his mere presence, Corvai swore under his breath and snapped, “Shut it!”

Most of the horses quieted in an instant, going back to their grain and water, seemingly unaware that anything had happened.

One, though — one swung her head high, ears swiveled back and dark eyes staring straight into Corvai.

“My dear,” Azram began, “what did you _do_ to her?”

“I didn’t do anything!” Corvai hissed, and the poor thing shifted in her stall, pulling away, her tail swishing behind her.

“She disagrees.” Azram raised an eyebrow. “Maybe it’s the unicorns—”

“Oh, shut up. Only people alive who know about that are me and you. She’s just a spiteful little nag.” Corvai strode purposefully up to the side of the stable, but the second he reached for her, the mare lunged to bite him, her hooves clattering against the floor of her stall. “I’ve been nothing but lovely to her!” Corvai snarled, ripping his hand back.

“I really don’t doubt that,” Azram soothed, approaching slowly. “Maybe it’s the whole… snake thing, hm?”

“Maybe horses don’t fear God.”

“Aren’t you taking this a bit personally?”

“It _is_ personal! S’been months, and we go through this every bleedin’ time I have to go somewhere beyond the city.”

Azram chuckled, “Then get a different one, or is your title just for show?”

Corvai glared at the horse and muttered under his breath. Azram tilted his head, glancing over with a little, “Hm?”

Another unintelligible mutter, deliberately quiet and muddled, and Azram hummed noncommittally, reaching into the stall again. The horse watched him warily for a moment before nudging her head into his hand, allowing him to pet up her snout and cheeks. In a soothing voice with the slightly conspiratorial tone, he murmured, “There’s a lovely filly. Even if _he_ doesn’t think so.”

Louder, intended to be heard and understood, Corvai said, “I like her.” Then, with a hiss, “Even if the feeling’s apparently not mutual.”

Azram felt a faint blessing roll over the horse, soothing the ache of her muscles and any agitation caused by the stablehands in Corvai’s absence. Her rump twitched, and she nosed harder into Azram’s hand until he gave her another pat.

“I could get you one,” Corvai said, attempting to sound distracted and undeliberate and failing miserably. “S’a lot less walking that way.”

“To ride back to the city?”

“To keep. Til it gets old. To take you wherever you need to go.”

With a slight sigh, Azram confessed, “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I don’t have the best track record with living things, you know.”

“That’s true.” He stepped towards an empty stall where his tack had been kept. “Keep her calm for me, will you? She likes you. For whatever reason.”

As Corvai busied himself with getting his things together, Azram led the mare’s face closer with gentle strokes and pats, smiling kindly until his forehead could lay just against hers. “Behave for him,” he murmured in a voice that sounded like rocks grating together and the screams of the damned. The mare froze, and Azram patted her cheek again with the barest threat of claws. “Or you won’t like the consequences.”

The horse didn’t make another unpleasant sound, and when Corvai approached with her tack, rather than biting at him, she nosed at him and nudged him gently, one wary eye kept on Azram who smiled, all teeth and malice until he was in Corvai’s line of sight again.


	28. the discorporation.

### 40 AD

The weather was clear and the temperature mild. Overall, it was entirely pleasant, a perfect day for a crowded arena and an entertaining bout of bloodsport.

Azram had never forgotten the heft of a sword. He had never forgotten Michael circling, correcting sharply, increasingly irritated with any deviation from recreations of her perfected form. He’d not held a blade in hand in recent years, though the flaming sword was hardly the last one he’d touched. There was something comfortably nostalgic about it, an ancient purpose settling in his bones.

He really tried not to enjoy gladiatorial fights. It was barbaric and hideous. Horrible, honestly.

It reminded him of the courtroom, of the many bloody atrocities committed in the name of entertainment.

And yet. There was something almost elegant about the mortals fighting for their life and their use of defense that was noticeably absent among fighters who couldn’t die. There were stakes here. A gladiator ducked behind his shield which faltered and fell under the weight of the blow, leaving him vulnerable. His opponent reversed his momentum, cutting, and the arena erupted into a wild cheer for a match that was over all-too soon.

“What a shame,” he clicked his tongue. “He really looked like he’d do better than that.”

Corvai snorted, smiling slightly though he remained at attention. He was overseeing the crowd today, a soldier of the Empire rather than another member of the audience. “Don’t tell me you put your money on him.”

“Gambling? On human lives? I’d never.”

“What about the races?”

“Well,” he started. “That’s a bit different, don’t you think? Almost no one dies during those.”

“Y’don’t even _need_ money.”

“But it’s fun,” Azram insisted with a smirk. “And Greed, you know.”

“I know,” he agreed.

In the center of the arena, guards were clearing up the body. The living combatant was being led from the arena to be patched up and readied for his next match. The crowd murmured, a thousand conversations rippling through the stands, and Azram could feel a slight undercurrent of discontentment. It was unnervingly familiar, too similar to the demons of the Court when their spectacle ended before they were satisfied with its cruelty. The audience hadn’t wanted a quick fight. They’d wanted a show.

So, too, did Caligula.

“Crowley,” his voice rang out, and the noise crawled unpleasantly up Azram’s spine.

Caligula sprawled in his seat in a way that was all-too familiar, as if he needed to take up as much space as possible, laying claim to everything he touched. Azram felt the tingle of infernal power across the tips of his fingers, claws itching to burst forth, to rip the fabric of reality asunder. Rage purred in his chest, warming him to every extremity as Corvai’s face faltered in a slight flinch before he smoothed it over and turned to walk before the tyrant to await the Emperor’s orders.

Caligula smiled in the same smug, satisfied way as Lucifer, drunk on his own power. “I want the lions readied and loosed in the arena before the races.”

Azram grimaced, supposing that Caligula would pit the gladiator against the lions as punishment for his failure to entertain.

“Of course,” Corvai said as evenly as he could though Azram heard a note of tension strung under the words. “Who will be their opponent?”

Caligula hummed to himself. Then, instead of answering, he asked, “Do you have family here, Crowley?”

“Family?” he repeated, clearly surprised, and Azram smothered a smile. They’d been at this for a long time, but of all the trappings of humanity they adopted to make plausible lives for themselves, the presence of other humans was often something they forgot. “No, none.”

“None?” Caligula frowned. “A pity. I would like them to witness your triumph in service to your god.”

Azram rolled his eyes, almost wishing for a divine bolt of lightning or for holy fire to rain from the sky. In recent months, Caligula’s ego had grown fat on the idea of godhood. He’d appeared in public dressed as various gods and demanded reverence and worship. He’d replaced idols with his own image, and he was planning more. Terrible Pride festered within him, twisting the fabric of his soul to tearing. Even if Corvai couldn’t sense sin, he must sense the absence of anything resembling Good. How Corvai stood before Caligula with his own fire tempered, wielding more power in a single feather than Caligula could ever dream of — it was almost impressive. Would have been, if Azram hadn’t been so annoyed.

“A shame.” But Caligula’s frown disappeared, replaced with a blinding smile as he gestured towards the tier of seats above him. “Pick any section of the _media cavea_ and take them to the arena floor.”

“Wh— what? Why?”

“Do I need a reason?” Caligula tilted his chin up, haughty, arrogant, and exposing the life-giving veins at his throat.

It would be so easy. A single blade to that tender skin, and Caligula’s reign would be over. Azram’s wings felt heavy on his back, weighed down with the potential for violence. One feather would become a sword. He had never forgotten the heft of it in his hand.

Flickers of righteous anger sparked to life inside Corvai. His well of fury was vast — Azram knew from personal experience. But now, power wrested with his willpower, and Azram wondered why on Earth he resisted. What holy reason could there be for restraint when Heaven had readily destroyed so many more humans for so much less?

Caligula continued blithely, “Any section between any set of stairs, but make sure there’s at least thirty. I don’t want it to end too suddenly like the last. Maybe put a few swords or spears in the middle. Let them fight among each other as equal beasts of the earth.”

“…No.”

Corvai had always possessed a flair for the dramatic. It had grown over the millennia, starting as an utterly guileless expression of emotions to something carefully curated and capable of subtlety that Azram was certain angels weren’t meant to possess. But when he said ‘no’… it was deliberate and flat, devoid of charm — mundane or divine. He continued to stand at attention, a stalwart soldier despite the flagrant disobedience.

Azram and Caligula both blinked.

Caligula’s smile was in still in place though now wavering with disbelief. “_No_?” he repeated. “Is that what you said?” With an insincere laugh, he straightened in his seat. “You think you can say no to me?”

“I do,” Corvai said plainly. “I did. Will again, if you ask.”

“I did not ask,” Caligula sneered. “I ordered. You _obey_, Crowley.”

Behind his shades, Corvai’s pupils shrank to slits. The Wrath he carried in his heart exploded to life like a star: destructive collision at the center of immense gravity and a single spark ignited a chain reaction that set it blazing. Around them, conversations tripped into silence, and thunder echoed through the cloudless sky and rolled through the arena.

It had been the wrong thing to say though Azram wasn’t entirely sure why. Corvai had been created, as all other angels had, to obey orders, to submit, to give the entirety of himself to God and those who spoke on Their behalf. As Azram himself had learned not long before he’d returned to Earth for the first time after Falling, obeying another master was equally innate and easy, though perhaps that was why he was no longer an angel in the first place.

But obeying Caligula, in this one instance, aligned with Heaven’s plans. As far as Azram knew, Corvai had yet to interact with Nero directly or indirectly. He was still preparing. Whatever sacrifices needed to be made for his mission’s success — they were not only allowed but expected and prepared for. A few dozen lives were nothing to the likes of Heaven.

Why was he doing this?

“You can either obey,” Caligula seethed, “or you can be a prelude to their suffering, an appetizer for the animals.”

Corvai’s head almost turned towards Azram. It was barely noticeable, a twitch that he didn’t follow through. The nearest shoulder dipped for the barest moment as if creating space to his left, almost inviting before it came back up and closed off.

It wouldn’t change anything — surely he knew that. Caligula had all-but said that someone else would be given the same order, that innocent people would still die but that Corvai would be first among them, an example in suffering. True, Corvai could be willfully ignorant especially where humans were concerned, but surely he _knew_—

“You aren’t _really_ giving me a choice, are you?”

There was the drama Azram knew, the way he squared his shoulders, the tick of his smile, daring even when he _really shouldn’t_—

“Guards. I want him disarmed, bound, and placed in the arena with the beasts.”

Perhaps, Azram thought wildly. Perhaps it was an intentional rebellion. Perhaps he had arranged for the other guards present to be on his side. He hadn’t told Azram of a coup, but why should he? After all, they were on opposite sides. Ideally, a human would strike him down, but it wouldn’t be strange for an angel to act as a catalyst. In fact, it would be expected, praised. Maybe Heaven was giving out commendations now, too.

Several other guards closed in on him in an instant. Hands grabbed his arms, his clothes, and Azram’s pulse thundered in his ears, overshadowing the clatter as the laurels fell to the ground. The shades were punched off his face, and Corvai didn’t fight back.

There was something unnerving about that — Azram could feel the discomfort thrumming through the other guards even as they rushed to obey Caligula. Corvai’s head lolled back, and a rough laugh scraped out of his throat before his head whipped up, golden snake eyes boring past the other humans straight into Caligula. He would forget, naturally — the human mind was resilient, and when it could not understand, it simply chose to forget — but there was a moment when fear struck deep into the mortal soul of the Emperor, quivering like an arrow.

“Caesar,” Corvai hissed, his tongue caressing the sibilant syllable, “look to your Brutus or repent.”

Even now, he offered salvation and mercy, offered _forgiveness_, and for a moment, there was harmony between his voice and the fear he’d planted. Unease bloomed in Caligula’s heart, and any other human might have succumbed. They might have begun babbling in languages they didn’t know or begging for forgiveness, driven mad by the need for it, as desperate as thirst in the desert.

But Caligula had long ago learned to stamp out fear and doubt, to quash the inner voice that might have introduced even a modicum of restraint. The fear and unease silenced in a snap, and the cruel light returned to Caligula’s eyes as he snarled, “Your screams will entertain me then be forgotten.”

A guard slammed Corvai to ground as shackles were fastened around his wrists behind his back. Corvai laughed into the floor but no longer struggled.

They pulled him up and forced him from the stands out onto the arena. Vilely, the humans began to cheer, some chanting Caligula’s title — _Caesar, Caesar Caesar_ — unaware that Corvai had been trying to spare them—

Well, no. Corvai had known from the start that this would save no one.

Several guards drove Corvai to his knees, and another announced, “Look upon wretched Crowley who displeased your Emperor. His death will be a balm to your boredom.”

Corvai raised his eyes towards the sky, but he didn’t move, didn’t speak, didn’t defend himself though it would be very easy to do. The shackles would fall away with only a thought. His wings would carry him into the open sky, far from the end Caligula envisioned for him. It would be nothing to escape, surely.

Why wasn’t he?

The guards left him to the jeers of the crowd, to the snarls of half-starved lions who already knew the taste of human flesh.

Azram didn’t watch. He wasn’t really sure why — he’d seen worse, lived through worse, but the moment the first lion lunged, his eyes closed of their own accord. He heard the raucous applause, felt the stain of Wrath and Pride blot itself on the hundreds of souls here, and felt some measure of grim satisfaction knowing that soon, they would suffer for it.

As for Caligula — it would take longer, but certainly, he would as well. Certainly, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

* * *

Discorporation, by its very nature, didn’t leave a body behind. Their flimsy facsimiles were not true bodies, and when a celestial entity no longer inhabited them, it took very little for them to dissipate and leave behind nothing.

It was worse in some unidentifiable way. Dozens of corpses had been left behind, but all that remained of Corvai was a puddle of dark cloth, a vague feeling of divinity, and the gleaming gold of the serpent pin that he’d kept over his body’s heart. Azram plucked it from where it lay, drawing his fingers along the pattern of scales.

It was as if he’d never existed, ephemeral and unreal.

Of course he did. He had. They’d been talking earlier that day, mere moments before Caligula had summoned him. He was now in Heaven, likely giving a tedious report to Gabriel about the loss of his body before being put into the queue for another.

It would take time, but he would be back. Looking the same as he ever had, surely — Azram’s body had always been remade, never requisitioned, reissued, a piece of damaged equipment that had needed replacing, but he imagined that they’d be similar to the old model though he didn’t know why.

It’s not as if it mattered to an angel.

He tucked the pin on the inside on the inside of his chilton, threading the needle through one layer of cloth so that the gold lay against his skin. He could feel the pattern of scales digging into old scars, but he paid it no mind. He would simply hold onto this for now. He’d return it to the rightful owner if he reappeared. When he reappeared. He must.

Until then… Azram had work to do.

### 41 AD

Justice did not exist. It couldn’t. The universe, such as it was, was terribly unfair, stilted to give the powerful everything while stripping more and more from those on the lowest rung. Caligula’s madness swept through the Empire, immeasurable cruelty stirring just beneath the surface of so many powerful men. Caligula’s personal guard was composed of those who answered to their Emperor first, more soldier than human, and those who failed to measure up were lucky to be killed by their fellows in arms before Caligula got his hands on them.

One day — soon, he imagined — those men would have no one but themselves and their beloved, fearsome Emperor to thank for the means of their own suffering. Azram was fond of irony and efficiency both. Luckily for him, irony suited Hell. Efficiency suited it a little less — King Belphegor of Sloth had spent untold years perfecting the art form of pointless bureaucracy, and Azram had a feeling that there was more untapped potential to be found there. As a demon, he could appreciate a bad job well done even if it went against his own instincts and preferences.

Every petty punishment, every hateful use of immense but ultimately mortal power — Azram stowed them carefully away to be hand-delivered at his earliest convenience and without a shred of guilt to Lucifer.

Justice did not exist, but it could be manipulated into being and forced into place.

It was justice that Caligula’s undoing was an act of impulsive arrogance. He announced his intended move to Alexandria with utter disregard of what it would do to Rome, what the Romans might think about losing their political pull within the Empire, their importance as the capitol. Within months, discontent had spread among the ranks of the Roman Legion, the Emperor’s personal guard, and the Senate. Several attempts failed, but Azram possessed a terrible and deadly patience.

After all, it would only take one blade in the right place at the right time. If one increased the number of knives waiting in the dark, one was bound to drive it home sooner rather than later.

The day of Caligula’s assassination was, for Azram, like many others before it. The news reached him in the whispered gossip of a quiet reading room. Azram smiled to himself, reaching up to draw a finger over the looping pin buried beneath his clothes where it pressed into his skin while the other hand steadily held a codex of poetry. He rolled the words over in his mind and contemplated the possibility of a bath in the very near future.

That was, in his humble opinion, the most attention the likes of Caligula deserved: a quick whisper, ignored and forgotten as soon as it was spoken.

* * *

Azram had always been a lonely creature. Even before the Fall, before the War when the Earth had been new and Creation had been in full swing, he’d been alone, watching the mornings crest the eastern horizon and waiting for something more than a sword and a sky. After, despite the near-constant contact with demons, he’d been lonely, too. Left to his carefully-guarded thoughts, planning his moves in the game he was forced to play with every other denizen of Hell — loneliness came from the soul, he felt, rather than having a thing to do with physical proximity.

He filled his loneliness as most lonely people did. He went to plays and concerts, to restaurants and private dinners, to a domicile that was ostensibly _his_ in a way no house had been before, where he kept a growing collection of scrolls and a few codices of poetry. He had his own copy of the _Satyricon_, and he was quite looking forward to sharing it with Corvai, provided that the angel promised to take care of it.

Azram was, despite everything, looking forward to a life with Corvai in it even if he had to stay in the periphery. They could brush up against one another time and again, but they couldn’t cross fully over. Couldn’t, if they didn’t want to get caught.

Maybe, he mused, he should have watched Corvai die. Maybe that would have made the waiting easier. Maybe if he’d seen Corvai’s body disappear, he wouldn’t feel so… empty. So strangely desperate.

Azram had waited for so long for so many things that it was second nature. He went about his days, kept his head down, and ignored the flame flickering in his chest with a reminder that every day he waited now was nothing compared to the inevitability of eternity, when Heaven or Hell won, when they would be separated until every star in this universe burned out and whatever came next was created to take its place.

Angels were grouped into choirs and battalions as demons were given ranks within their Kingdoms. They were, frankly, not meant to be alone.

It was natural, then, that his gut twisted, that he _smiled_ when he heard that voice practically snarling over the din of a crowded tavern, “Give me a jug of whatever you think is drinkable.”

He did not possess the same social grace that Corvai did, but he wove through the crowd as deftly as he could manage. Corvai perched inelegantly on a stool, scowling into a cup the second it was given to him. From the clothes to the shades to the color of his skin and the splatter of his freckles, he looked almost exactly as he had though the hair atop his head was wine red.

Azram reached up to where he carried the pin inside his clothes. He withdrew it and felt it warm in his hand before he held it out. “My dear fellow, I do believe you dropped this.”

Corvai’s head turned minutely towards him, eyes flicking from the pin up to Azram’s face. “Guess I did,” he said, taking it with a moment’s hesitation, as if he expected Azram to pull it out of his reach before he could touch it. “Should I say thanks?”

“I think not.”

Corvai scowled, “Then how can I make it up to you?”

“You know,” Azram said, settling cautiously into the seat at Corvai’s side, “there’s a new restaurant I’d been thinking to try. I’ve heard things about their oysters.”

Corvai’s lips twitched in a futile attempt to hide his smile. “S’pose I don’t have a choice, do I?”

Azram smiled, “I suppose there’s always a choice to be made.” Then, almost accusatory, “Reckless thing; I’m surprised they let you come back so soon.” He nodded towards the cup. “Though it seems I’ve caught you before you managed to get ‘roaring drunk,’ haven’t I?”

“Night’s young yet. Give me time.” He tipped his head, knocking back some of his drink.

“By all means, take as much as you need, Crowley.”

Corvai sputtered around a mouthful of wine, and Azram turned his attention to the barkeep to order something for himself.

They had time. If only for tonight, if only like this, they had time to spare.


	29. the druid.

### 47 AD

Overhead, an overcast sky smothered the sunlight, casting the land below in dim shadows as rain drizzled, dreary and unceasing.

In the weeks since his arrival on Britannia’s shores, the rain had been a near-constant companion, slowly soaking his clothes, his hair, leaving a constant chill on his skin. When it didn’t outright, it lingered in the heavy humidity, in the mud on his feet, in a general feeling of dampness that had wormed its way beneath his skin which was worse altogether than the rain itself.

The only comfort, really, was that the Roman legionnaires were as miserable — if not moreso — than him.

Azram was not here in the company of the Legion nor in any capacity as a citizen of the Empire. The legionnaires were blissfully unaware of his presence or the way he trailed after them, using their brute force to his own satisfaction. Let them tear through the forests and marshes, searching to conquer while he bided his time, searching.

The crumbs that had led him this far were few and sparsely placed. A legionnaire complained to his brother in arms, and word crawled from one mouth to another, source forgotten even as the superstition made its way through Rome and to him.

Something lurked in wait, some center of wild magic that was putting up a resistance to Roman rule. Its existence spat in the face of the Empire, challenging their gods who had not yet destroyed it. They would, surely, but Azram noticed a brief hesitation, a note of concern, an unspoken yet audible ‘what if?’ that flourished and grew until it was enough to convince him that there might be something true to after all.

So here he was on a miserable island with some equally-miserable Romans, following battalions as they ranged out from a variety of conquered _civitates_.

* * *

Months he spent half-soaked and entirely disgusted with himself for staying. There was no evidence that the rumors were anything other than campfire stories told by one bored man after another. Yet, every time he steeled himself to leave, he simply didn’t.

For months, Azram watched as the Roman Empire pressed at the tribes’ borders, taking as much land by social pressure as it did by warfare. Even in the lands that had submitted willingly, there were pockets of resistance, small rebellions. The Romans used them to show off their supposed superiority. They saw the lands as uncivil, in need of taming. They considered it benevolence to spread their governance to these inferior humans.

Azram waited to feel proof of that power he’d come searching for, and he waited for the sparks of rebellion within the conquered lands to catch and grow into a sizable flame.

A fire crackled in a stone hearth as rain pounded against the roof. Azram willed the water out of his hair, feeling his curls spring up the moment they were dry. He spared a disdainful look at the men where they sprawled and drank, full of food and warmth that they didn’t rightly deserve.

He would much rather have found someplace useful to be, but this was, unfortunately, the best option he had. Men would speak of things in these walls, dressed down and wine-loose that they wouldn’t dream of breathing in the open air where any random ear might hear.

After a moment of heavy contemplation, one of them spoke: “I swear — there was a woman. Out in the battlefield, fighting like one of the men.”

Another soldier snickered from across the room. “I’m sure it looked like a woman. The men wear their hair just as long.”

“Beasts,” a third voice chimed in. Then, quietly, “Did you get a look? Under the linen, once you’d won?”

Azram’s eyes narrowed, a sneer curling on his lips as the second voice teased, “Show her the might of the Empire?”

“W— well, not as such—”

A harsh, howling laugh: “You don’t mean to tell me she got _away_?”

“She killed four of us like it was nothing.” He paused, considered, amended, “Well. Actually. Not like it was nothing. More like she… she enjoyed it.”

“Should’ve been five before you let her run,” another man said, and the room erupted into raucous, disgusting, self-congratulatory mirth.

Azram contemplated the fire as it blazed. He’d heard of women fighting at the sides of the men in their tribes, fearsome in their own right, and he’d heard his share of lewd jokes and monstrous implications. He hadn’t heard any Roman speak of a woman with such awed reverence, especially not in the company of other legionnaires who would be anything but merciful in response. She must have frightened him.

“What did she look like?” Azram asked, still staring into the fire. The kindling popped, sending a shower of sparks in the air as the logs settled.

Though the storyteller forgot who asked, the answer was at the forefront of his mind, and a desperate need to know cleaved through his audience in a sick burst of curiosity. A chorus of voices cajoled him, and Azram reached out, prying into the legionnaire’s memories.

He saw a bloody battlefield, waged on uneven, rocky terrain. He saw a woman among the tribesmen and her plaited hair of red. She was disarmed, but she _laughed_ and struck out at the nearest Roman soldier, wresting his sword away and ending his life in a single fluid movement.

Azram tried to focus the memory on her face, but the legionnaire hadn’t paid attention, thoroughly distracted by her pale, painted body and the cold fear of death as another man fell to the joyous symphony of violence.

Nearby, the storyteller continued, fabricating lurid details to titillate his listeners. Azram stood, brushing off his clothes as he mused over a most remote possibility.

There was a chance — slim as it was — that the warrior the Romans had encountered was the Archangel Michael. She was a warrior, after all, and a masterful swordsman. Her human form had possessed red hair when Azram had last seen her, and the odds of an Archangel being discorporated were extraordinarily low. The politics of being an Archangel would keep her from altering her physical form too drastically lest she be accused of Pride.

For a moment — and not for the first time since he’d arrived in Britannia — Azram longed for the easy access to Corvai he’d enjoyed in Rome both before the angel’s discorporation and briefly after Caligula’s assassination. As it was, he could hardly ask if Heaven had thrown their lot in with the Briton tribes, and he certainly couldn’t ask if Michael was overseeing the war efforts.

He _shouldn’t_ ask, really, even if they were reunited, but he could rarely resist the temptation to wheedle and pry just to see what Corvai would willingly give to him.

Azram puttered around the room, continuing to think as he kept his hands busy. Michael had never been the sort to revel in destruction. She was cold and precise, matter-of-fact. The legionnaire’s memory of a warrior all-but bathing happily in the blood of her enemies was terribly at odds with Azram’s own memories of Michael.

He plucked the stopper out of a jug. Wine spilled on the floor, on a bed, drying quickly to red stains and a scent of alcohol that lingered.

It had been several thousand years since he’d last seen Michael, though, on Mount Moriah when she’d given a flaming sword to Abraham. It wasn’t unthinkable that she should change. After all, he was hardly the same demon he’d been on that pyre. He couldn’t imagine choosing to sacrifice his body or his freedom over something so small and insignificant as a _child_. It seemed unthinkable that he once had. It spoke volumes of his own weakness, his capacity for naivety. Thank Satan he’d gotten over that.

The mattresses were stuffed with hay. Holes appeared, torn open in the sides where the thread had worn thin. If wine had soaked into the straw, if the scent of alcohol lingered until it practically permeated the room — why, it was nothing more than an unfortunate coincidence. It took very little to create a plausible catastrophe out of thin air.

Azram stepped out into drizzly night, swinging the heavy wooden door closed behind him. The hinges rusted, holding the door in place.

Thunder crashed as lightning streaked through the sky. Inside, the kindling settled again with yet another shower of sparks. A wayward log rolled to the edge of the hearth, and a single piece of cloth caught fire. The chain reaction spiraled out of control in a matter of moments. 

It would probably be weeks before someone else came looking for the missing batch of legionnaires and found a burnt husk of a captured farm instead.

How utterly tragic.

### 49 AD

Following the stories of the fierce Briton woman proved harder than the general superstition of some sort of magic wielded by the opposition. At times like these, he missed the demonic sense of warning that came with an Archangel’s presence. He had never been quite sure what Heaven had done to disguise its agents to him, and he wasn’t sure if he was similarly hidden.

He supposed it was yet another question to ask, assuming he ever left this Satan-forsaken island and returned to Rome.

Britannia had grown on him, he supposed, especially once he’d abandoned following in the Romans’ footsteps, exploring villages and farmsteads on his own. He slipped in and out of civilization in the shape of a sheep, often unnoticed and overlooked. When humans did pay attention to him, it was fairly the same as it ever had been. A symbol of ownership was carved into his ear. Occasionally, he was placed in a pen with other sheep. More often, he was herded along, taken to graze with a sizable flock. When he was certain not to be missed, he slipped away, now bearing proof that he belonged to this community until it no longer served his best interests and he moved on.

He supposed, more than once, that he could leave his ears unhealed. Those unfamiliar with the specific mark would understand that he belonged to _somebody_, and he would be left alone at best or returned at worst.

But there was — not that he would ever admit it — a strange sort of comfort in being taken in, in being claimed and wanted. It was certainly familiar if nothing else. The pain was temporary, nothing more than a flash in the pan, and it replaced unwanted attention with a sense of easy fondness.

He never stayed long — a season at most. Winters were unpleasant enough without spending long, dark days alone, traipsing through the snow without the foggiest clue of where to go next when he could be warm when surrounded by a flock. But it was often long enough to learn more about the locals than he needed to know, to become familiar with their patterns. He knew their names, their simple lives, their routines, and rituals.

As the Roman Legion encroached, he worried somewhat that it might all be lost.

After all, how many civilizations had already been forgotten by the relentless turn of time?

* * *

The hills and valleys rolled in an uneven pattern towards the horizon, the peaks soon illuminated by the sun as dawn broke in the east. The moors were painted by the light and shadow, pink and purple swaths forming a familiar picture, though he had once seen it in the dunes of desert sand as opposed to a scraggly covering of grass, heather, and underbrush.

For a moment, if he dared, he could imagine himself as a guard atop a wall, blissfully ignorant, feeling so beloved and cherished as if the rise of the sun was meant for him alone.

“You,” a voice said. It was raspy and weathered, strained from an old injury from which it had never recovered. “I knew you’d be here.”

Azram heard her breaths rattle in her chest, the cool morning air catching in her damaged lungs. His ears twitched as she stepped towards him, feet sinking in the mud, clothes hissing as they were dragged through the underbrush that grabbed at her, gnarling in the cloth, trying to still her.

A briar wound around his back leg, and Azram became suddenly aware that this wasn’t his doing. The plants were reacting, reaching for them both, in spite of his presence rather than because of it.

He turned his head, stubbornly remaining shaped as a sheep even as she smiled at him. Ink stained her skin in elegant swoops and curves, curling into an ornate sun that peeked out from under her clothes. Her silver hair caught in the morning breeze, plaits tugged by the wind until strands came loose and framed her face. Her dark eyes held him, warm and knowing, and Azram felt peeled apart, pried open, _seen_.

Between one blink and the next, he changed his shape. He expected some sort of response, some reaction, but she didn’t so much as flinch.

She took a hesitant step closer, leaning on a walking stick. “Do you know who I am?”

Azram’s pupils slanted into rectangles as his horns curled from his skull. Without asking, without waiting, he looked into her.

What he saw was death.

He saw a steady and endless decay, the slow death of generations of cells, the weakening of her muscles, the shudder of her organs as they tried to keep her living. Her lungs, in particular, had never been the same, would never be healed. The constant dampness in the air had given her a terrible cough that wracked her chest. He saw the unerring certainty that one summer storm — years in the future, after her youngest son had his second child — would swallow her whole and leave her cold in her bed, waiting to be found, to be buried, to be given back to the earth.

Rosula had known death since she was a girl. She had seen it in that far-off summer when her throat had still been bloody, when the screams that weren’t hers had kept her up at night. She had seen it in the faces of her loved ones, in the crops planted at the start of a bad season, in the animals before a sickness claimed more than its fair share. She had seen it riding along the well-traveled roads between tribes, wearing leather and metal armor, bearing a promise of peace with a sword treacherously in hand.

Half a lifetime ago, Rosula had collapsed on a lonely hillside not far from here, out of her mind with pain and fear until a kindly voice reminded her, rather desperately, to breathe. She had known death, then, crawling through her veins, ravaging like a wildfire through her brain. She had seen and seen things that no human was meant to see. Her skin had been too tight to contain both herself and the invading force of Azram, and rather than rip her apart, he had left. She had been abandoned with questions that had no answers, a bleeding throat, and a vision of this morning when she would see a sheep overlooking the moor.

She had seen death for so much of her life, but she had held onto the promise of this day, this moment, this meeting.

“Oh,” Azram said. “Oh, dear.”

Rosula laughed, the noise scratchy and uneven. “That’s it?”

“Well,” Azram huffed, “I’m not quite sure what you want me to say. It wasn’t exactly my plan to— to _ruin_ your life, as it were. Nor to run into you again. I had no idea you were still alive.”

“And yet here we are.”

“Rather.” The wind whistled through the valley below, and Azram cleared his throat. “If you’re expecting an apology—”

“Oh, no. I know you wouldn’t. Wha’s there to apologize for, anyway?” She gave a knowing smile that no mortal should rightly possess. “You can’t change it.”

“I could, in fact.” He smiled. “I could give you anything you wished for.”

With another breathy laugh, Rosula stepped forward. “I wouldn’t change anything.”

“Liar.”

Rosula flinched. For the briefest second, her eyes flicked away, in the direction of the nearest road, but they soon fixed on him again, intense, unyielding. “Nothing you could give. We cannot stop what rides from Rome.” She took a shaky breath. “Death comes for us all.”

Then, without explaining, she held out her hand to him. “Come,” she said, “I have questions and a fire to keep you warm.”

Azram tugged his leg free from the briar but did not take it, choosing to walk at her side rather than bringing them to touch.

* * *

The conversations were surprisingly brief. Rosula did not bore him with the minutiae of her own life, nor did she invite him into it. He met her family as briefly as he met the others in her small village, rarely bothering to exchange names. He was nothing more than a guest, a passerby. Yet she didn’t ask him to leave.

“Your visions,” he said one evening over some mulled wine. “Have they shown you anything… important?”

“To me,” she said, smiling wider as he rolled his eyes. “But to the likes of you — I imagine not.”

“Anything about me, then?” Azram drawled as he placed his mug down. It gave him the space to ease back in his chair, lacing his fingers over his stomach while he watched her with his naked eyes. “An omen of warning, perhaps.”

Rosula closed her eyes, leaning back in her own seat before her fire. Her lids flickered, eyes moving behind them. The fire in her hearth choked on its smoke, smoldering quickly to little more than embers.

There was a _pulse_ as if the Earth had acquired a heart of its own. It rushed in Azram’s ears, making them pop, and something electric jolted through his body, stealing his breath, causing his own heart to miss a beat before he tried to refit himself around this new burst of power, accommodating to exist alongside.

Finally, Rosula spoke: “I see a curse amid a lock of circles, a ritual, a device. Writing I cannot read. This, my legacy, long after I have been forgotten.”

The ensuing silence felt heavy. Azram turned the words over, searching for some hidden meaning, but given what he knew about prophecy, the _point_ was that he couldn’t understand it yet. “Extremely unhelpful.” What little he’d gleaned, he managed to hold onto spitefully. “Though it seems your descendants will get to enjoy a taste of your little gift as well.”

“Hm,” Rosula mused, her eyes cracking open as she rolled her head down to look at him. “Or is it yours?”

Azram scoffed though he couldn’t quite argue, and that was the most annoying part of all.

* * *

He left in the middle of the night, restless in the wake of Rosula’s earlier rush of power. What were the chances that Michael — that anyone from Heaven or Hell — had felt it, had noticed, were moving now in search of the source? He couldn’t sit around and wait to be found by the enemy he was hunting or by his nominal allies who would enjoy nothing more than to scrutinize his lack of progress.

He’d promised her nothing. Not safety or long life, not a fruitful harvest or healthy children (or grandchildren, as the case may be).

He hadn’t promised not to tempt every single person she loved until they joined him in the circles of Hell, suffering for an eternity.

Yet, she slept soundly, and Azram scowled down at her slumbering form, taking in her implicit and innocent trust with disdain. Yet, he did not harm her.

Let her have her small, insignificant life. Let her descendants enjoy their own.

Azram had better things to do than to focus on the suffering of some random human, especially one whose life he’d already ruined.

### 50 AD

“Let them have the hills beyond the river. Let them fight for scraps like the animals they are.” The Roman commander scoffed, “What use does the Empire have for such filth?”

Azram had not promised Rosula a single blessed thing, but something she’d said stuck with him, struck a chord in him, annoying him until he’d finally had enough and returned to the nearest Roman _civitas_, seeking out the man in charge.

_“We cannot stop what rides from Rome,”_ she had said, perhaps unaware of how much damage a single demon could do if he were in the right place at the right time. Sloth could be such an effective sin when placed in the chokeholds of social hierarchy, smothering all potential beneath by simply refusing to move.

It had occurred to him, naturally, that Rosula had _known_, that it had been a challenge issued. He could well be performing exactly as her visions had predicted. Be that as it may, he was willing to play along if only for a time, if only to prove her wrong. Returning to Rome would be all the sweeter if he could ensure that they lost ground here while the tribes got their feet beneath them for a proper revolt.

There was a grumble among the gathered officers, but none voiced their protest.

Days later, after Azram boarded a ship back to the mainland, a rejuvenated force of warriors crossed the river, climbed the hills, and claimed the lands and people there for the Roman Empire.

He assumed it to be Heavenly or Hellish interference, or else humanity’s free will had reared its head and taken the reins.

After all, what else was there?


	30. the detonation. (part one)

### 79 AD

When one was searching for a human-created aberration, one tended to wander. He followed stories as he heard them, but more often than not, Azram meandered without rhyme or reason. All corners of the Earth were his to explore, to learn, to pick apart while searching for that divine spark of Creation that dwelled within humans which might turn the tides of the Great War in Hell’s favor.

He often followed his gut instinct which usually led him to food rather than anything of substance, but it was frequently something different, something new, something he thought of introducing to Corvai when their paths next crossed.

He was on the far side of the world in a village that stood between the taiga and the sea when he felt something stir. Azram lifted his head from the steaming mug he’d been sipping, concentrating on a distant ripple. He followed the first ring to the next, slowly closing in on the epicenter. There was a swell of power, a maelstrom of celestial energy, and Azram, annoyed and intrigued in turns, sat his cup to the side and stood.

No self-respecting demon would advertise their presence so blatantly. He could imagine angels, in all their self-righteousness and arrogance, forgetting stealth and subterfuge, focused on their goal and eschewing all possible repercussions.

It could also be human. Azram didn’t know _how_ — after all, nothing Jesus had done had felt like this. But then, Heaven had been protecting him, shielding him from harm until the Great Plan had demanded he suffer and die. Azram sighed, a thin puff of steam clouding the air in front of him.

He didn’t have time to weigh his options. It was the first solid lead he’d had in decades, and it could fade in an instant.

His wings snapped open. Starlight glanced off his black feathers, and in the next instant, he vanished in a flash. Azram’s body splintered apart, compressed, disintegrated until he was little more than a handful of photons. The pieces of him tried to scatter, but Azram held them together with a stern reminder that he would need them to rebuild his corporation on the far end of his journey.

The next gleam of a faraway star shattered open a pathway, and Azram bolted down it. He hopped from one source of light to the next, racing faster than a mortal eye could ever hope to track. Occasionally, the light would break apart, and he would have to regroup, pulling his photons together in a flash that resembled his body. It paved the way for him to continue. The taiga gave way to an untouched forest, mountains rising on the horizon, but nothing could touch him. Certainly, nothing could stop him. There were few places on the surface of the planet — on the surface of any planet in the entirety of the universe — that wasn’t touched by light. Even the faintest glow would be enough for him to appear. Possibilities branched and splintered apart into endless permutations on the far side of a thousand galaxies.

He loathed every moment of it. He hated the freedom that beckoned to him. He hated being surrounded, subsumed, taken by the light. He hated the reminder of Lucifer’s power, how unfathomably vast it was, how reliant he was even with Lucifer sitting on his throne in another plane of existence. A snarl shook the earth below him as he careened over an ocean. The night faded to dawn around him, then to a blazing midday. He danced around the shadows created by clouds, twisting easily through the brightest path until he slammed suddenly into inescapable shade.

Azram hastily pulled himself together, photons expanding, atoms binding, cells building a celestial form. An endless number of eyes blinked open as a shuddering breath filled his corporation’s newly-reformed lungs.

Ash coated his tongue and flew into his eyes. Azram’s wings slashed through the air, pushing it away from him and clearing his gaze.

Thick clouds of smoke billowed through the sky, so heavy that they blocked out the sun. Flakes of ash fell like rain, swirling onto the city below. The earth thundered, and Azram’s eyes were drawn to the volcano as another wave of heat and rock raced down the mountainside, forming a deadly avalanche. It rushed towards the city where the cries of the fearful were growing weaker, suffocated by the lack of oxygen in the air as fire consumed it.

Azram watched as several humans fled, aware of their impending doom and their inability to stave it off. A child tripped over her sandals, careening to the ground. Her father hastily handed her siblings off to their mother, rushing back for his child. Inevitability bore down on them, but before it hit, there was a flash of gold.

Azram blinked as divine power sliced through the oncoming rush of rock, forming a barrier that protected those behind it.

Six wings pushed the debris away, and forced the humans slightly further down the road. They picked themselves up and continued fleeing.

Azram’s brow wrinkled, and his excess eyes closed until he was left with only the two. He began to lower himself to the ground, but before he got anywhere close, there was another desperate cry. Corvai left a trail of golden light behind him as he zipped towards the next catastrophe.

It was impossible. Surely, he knew that. Azram could feel the fear all around him, could feel human lives blinking out one by one. It would be impossible to save more than a few of them, and for what? Their lives had already been destroyed. What did they have that was worth living for?

A bolt of lightning cracked through the darkness, striking the edge of Vesuvius, and Azram distantly remembered a different roll of thunder and the smell of rain.

Corvai had risked his own Fall for eleven humans. He had chosen them at the Ark, condemning unicorns to extinction in their place.

_“I choose them. They’re **innocent**. If, if unicorns are the bloody price that has to be paid, then **fine**.”_

But those had been children, innocent of their families’ heresy and doubt, doomed to die for the crime of being born in the wrong place at the wrong time. These were both the innocent and guilty, the good and evil and everyone in between. The stain of sin had touched most of the souls here, yet Corvai protected them.

It was _pointless_. It was dangerous for an angel. It was _stupid_.

Azram flashed into the next trail of golden light, following quickly behind Corvai as he intercepted another avalanche of red-hot stone. Corvai manifested in his corporal form, feet digging into the ground as he brought his hands and wings up, holding back the next wave of destruction. Blisters had opened along his palms, black ash collecting in the seething wounds. His wings were missing feathers; golden blood dripped from the gaps. Rocks tore through his wings, but he held them stubbornly in place as black scales glinted along his body.

“Go!” Corvai’s command shook the sky and the ground. The dumbstruck mortals quickly moved along. If they stumbled through a miraculous, shorter path to safety, they could attribute it later to confusion, to shock, and certainly not to the power of a rogue angel.

Either way, they didn’t stay long enough to see Corvai’s knees shake or hear his breath shuddering through his chest, heedless of the ash that crowded in his lungs.

“Corvai,” Azram said. 

Corvai’s wings lifted and tensed defensively. One of them — the lowest on his left side — fluttered after a moment, wavering, and Azram’s stomach turned at the sight of bone sticking through the skin.

“_Corvai_,” he said again, snarling.

Corvai turned his head slightly and spoke in a low, dangerous voice. “Did you do this?”

“No.” He stalked closer, wheedling, “After all, your side like to create these sorts of tragedies, don’t they?”

“We didn’t. Not this one.”

“Are you sure they would have told you?” Azram sneered.

“Don’t—” Corvai hissed, turning fully around before Azram could do more than reach for his nearest wing. “Don’t start. Just— just _help me_—”

Azram’s words died away. Around the scales on Corvai’s face, his skin was darkly charred and splitting apart. A deep gash dug up one sharp cheek and narrowly missed tearing through his eye which had swollen shut in a meager defense.

A miracle thrummed beneath Corvai’s skin, immense divine power locking tight around his corporeal form, but not a single scratch faded from view. If anything, as the seconds ticked by, the injuries looked worse.

“Let me—” he began, reaching for him, but Corvai took a step away, baring his fangs in a snarl.

“M’not leaving.”

Azram wanted to argue terribly, but there was another rumble from Mt. Vesuvius, and lava splashed into the air. Corvai’s skin started to glimmer, golden light gathering around him, and Azram lunged forward in the next heartbeat before he could disappear. “Work your wings to the bone for all I care,” he seethed and reached out to the injuries, sealing the blisters on his hands and easing the swelling on his face.

The moment his power spread to Corvai’s wings, Corvai ripped himself away and leaped into the air. In a flash, he was gone somewhere else, naked power drawing Azram’s eye from a hundred miles away.

Smoke poured into the stratosphere, smothering the light for as far as the eye could see. Heat seeped into the earth and spread, turning the buildings into furnaces and boiling those who ran desperately in search of safety.

Death nipped at their heels, hours away at most. Those that did escape — where would they go? What would be waiting for them when their ears were ringing with the thunder of the eruption, when their flesh had been torn and burned down the raw nerves?

It would be a kindness to die rather than to suffer.

Azram saw a burst of golden light in the far distance, and with a sneer, he turned towards the south. His wings beat through the air, propelling him forward at a decent clip. He could feel his right wing struggling to keep up the pace, fluttering out of sync with its twin, desperate and uneven.

He disappeared in a flash the moment he escaped the billow of smoke overhead, following the road to the southwest. Refugees would be days behind him at most if they made it at all.

* * *

Azram was certainly not helping. The humans of Surrentum chose to erect tents, to prepare for the flood of injured people on their own. His hands itched to do harm, to tear at the supporting beams, to misplace the soaks prepared to treat incoming burn victims, to exhaust those administering aid before anyone arrived. He was a liability if anything, a ticking time bomb who would only do as much damage as the volcano itself.

He could feel the despair that had swallowed the survivors whole. He felt their hope, a pitiable flame whose mere and ephemeral existence kept them moving towards Surrentum.

Azram was really only putting people at risk when he suggested that they take horses and carts to meet the refugees on the road.

Early the second day, when the rosy colors of dawn could be seen on the edges of the horizon save for where Vesuvius continued to erupt, the bottom of the smoke cloud fell out. Azram watched it collapse onto the world below and felt hundreds of lives vanish in a matter of moments.

He watched for a flash of gold. He waited to feel something divine warring with the inevitability of death.

Time continued to turn and brought no answers with it.

* * *

Azram did not dwell long with the injured and the dying. His visits to the refugee camp were frequent, but his time was spent organizing supplies and volunteers. Tedious work suited him. There was something almost comforting about meticulous monotony, and it kept him busy somewhere far away from those on Death’s doorstep.

There was something sick seething in his soul, a cruel delight and deep satisfaction with the suffering around him. The more he saw, the more some wretched part of him savored. Azram’s hands went through steady, practiced motions as he felt the rising tide of pain, fear, and anger in the world around him. 

An angel might have blessed the soaks he prepared. They might have lent their hands to stitching wounds, to a tireless watch over the crowded camp of refugees. A rare miracle might slip through their fingers, enough to push away the fear, to take the edge off the pain, to inspire hope in a soul that needed only to be stubborn to survive. 

Azram kept a careful and measured distance.

A voice trembled in the early evening outside the supply tent: “It’ll be a miracle if he survives.”

Another man grunted, “There’s no way. If the gods are kind, he’ll pass tonight.”

Azram didn’t look up from his work for hours more. By the time he bothered, the conversation had long gone silent, and most movement in the camp had ceased. He stepped out into the darkest night he’d ever seen, smoke thicker than clouds lingering in the starry sky. Azram moved through the tents with a feline grace, steps silent but quick as he passed by dozens of the injured.

He knew Corvai in an instant. His corporation was unrecognizable, severe burns littering every inch of exposed skin. A piece of cloth wrapped around his hips and tucked up between his legs, but otherwise, he wore nothing but some linen soaks that had been left on his burns. His hair was completely gone. He looked frail and fragile. Ashen. Pale. But Azram _knew_ him. He knew the thump of Corvai’s weak, bleeding heart the second he felt it under his fingertips. 

He drew his touch tentatively along Corvai’s hand. Something in his chest clutched tightly when Corvai’s fingers twitched and feebly curled as if reaching for him.

Azram had, in the last few days, developed a very solid plan for what to do if Corvai arrived in the refugee camp. He would discorporate him, simple as anything. Azram would end his misery and return him to Heaven for a light scolding and a new body.

It would be so terribly easy. Corvai couldn’t be far from discorporating on his own. His breaths were shallow and shaky in his chest. His body had undergone a severe amount of trauma. It would be difficult for an angel who _could_ heal themselves to shrug off, and for whatever ineffable reason, Corvai couldn’t. But if Azram was kind, it would be over in an instant, and Corvai wouldn’t feel anything. He likely wouldn’t even know the cause unless Azram chose to tell him.

Corvai’s body was a sprawling, lanky mess, but Azram made due. He scooped him up, an arm wrapped around his back and the other nestled in the crook of his knees. Azram held him close to his chest as he stepped out into the night. The streets of Surrentum led him down their shadowy lanes, pulling him to an as-yet empty room on the second floor of an inn. With only a thought, the room had suddenly been lent out for more than a few days, the sum generously paid for several weeks’ time by a man who wanted, more than anything, to be left alone.

The excuses wove themselves quickly as he ascended the stairs. He was tempting the innkeeper with Greed. He was taking lodgings away from humans who certainly needed it more than he. It was Slothful not to ask questions of a mysterious stranger who might harbor ill intent, and it would be Prideful to consider the reputation of one’s establishment over the needs of many people crammed in tight quarters just inside the city walls.

Azram shouldered the door open to a modest room with a single bed. Corvai looked small in the middle of it, unmoving save for the uneven rise and fall of his chest. He hadn’t stirred from the moment Azram had first seen him, not even when Azram had physically moved him. How willful his desire to sleep must be, how much pain he must be avoiding.

For a moment, Azram observed him, burned and bleeding, almost lifeless. So devoid of everything that made him Corvai. Even his hair, which he changed with honestly alarming frequency, was completely gone. He should look nothing like the angel Azram knew. And yet… He couldn’t be anyone else. If anything, he looked more radiant, more holy, more like himself than Azram had ever seen.

Azram gently bled his own power into Corvai, not daring to heal him lest it interfere with the divine miracle he was continuing to feed. To maintain a miracle despite his lack of consciousness… it must be deliberate on his part. It must be important, and Azram was loath to disturb it.

With a little more energy to spare, Corvai’s eyes flicked behind their lids as some color returned to his skin. His breathing steadied as he fell into a deeper slumber, and he turned towards Azram as if unconsciously seeking more.

“Now,” he chided the sleeping angel, “that’s enough of that, don’t you think?”

He summoned a comfortable chair at the far wall of the small room. He eased into it, an ankle laid across the opposite knee as he settled back with nothing to do but to watch over his chosen ward, shouldering a burden that he should have left a thousand years ago or more.

“You are going to be the death of me, you know.” His put-upon sigh was met with a most unwelcome and unpleasant silence.

* * *

Hours passed. Azram was an unwavering guardian, tracking every movement, every shift, every twitch of the body in front of him. Occasionally, Corvai’s breathing would stop, the habit forgotten. The first time, Azram’s gaze had sharpened, and he’d leaned forward, waiting to see if Corvai’s corporation had finally given out, but the constant undercurrent of divine power told him that Corvai was still there.

Eventually, Corvai must have remembered to breathe because air started stuttering shallowly into his lungs again, chest rising and falling in uneven movements.

The third time he’d stopped and started again, Azram mused, “You mustn’t be too deep. You’re monitoring your body without returning fully to consciousness.” He frowned, “But what are you waiting for? To heal?”

In truth, Corvai looked better than he had when Azram had first laid him in the bed. Not by much, but Azram had an eye for detail, and he’d spent hours scouring the worst of Corvai’s injuries. The black edges of his burns had slightly begun to fade. Rocks had torn through his skin, leaving open wounds that no longer oozed with blood. The humans had been attentive, removing what shards they could. But, he noted, ash had gotten deep into the wounds, and as they started to close, they were keeping the detritus in. The cuts that should have been golden were dark, the lips inflamed with impending infection.

That alone gnawed at him. Removing the excess wasn’t _quite_ healing, was it? And it was to prevent a worsening of the overall condition of Corvai’s corporation. Chances were that it wouldn’t even brush along the miracle burning at the center of him.

Azram had never been quite capable of turning off that nagging voice. It knew the shape of the rules, and it knew how to navigate neatly around the edges. Circumvention, technicalities. It flirted near any boundary it could find then brazenly flaunted the lack of violation.

The blisters on Corvai’s palms were soot-dark, a thin, new layer of skin separating the wounds from the open air. Azram rolled his hand over, fingers gentle as they pinned Corvai’s knuckles to the mattress.

The longer he waited, the deeper it would be. He thought of Corvai in all his mischief, in all of his blessed doubt, slinky, slithery, furious, _kind_, and carrying these wounds until he next discorporated.

He thought of Corvai in weeks’ time, still cut up and burned, at least one wing broken, slumbering deeply to avoid an invited agony.

Azram tutted. “You really are a fool.” Then, consideringly, he added, “And at the mercy of a demon. Dear me.”

Infernal power seeped from Azram’s hands, scouring along Corvai’s corporation. Closed wounds were gently reopened, dirt and rubble collected and banished from every inch. Once or twice, he came next to Corvai’s sustained miracle, scraping unpleasantly alongside until he could retreat to the shallower wounds. With expert precision, he removed every last speck of debris.

Corvai’s mouth hung open, breath caught. Something soundless choked in his chest, and Azram noted the tension in his body, the pain radiating from every cleaned wound.

“It’s only pain,” he murmured. “Unpleasant, I know. But it’s hardly going to kill you.” Then, tartly, “If you’re going to complain, you could at least wake up to do it.”

A weak noise slipped past his lips, and Corvai eased back onto the bed.

“There we are. That’s what I thought.”

* * *

In the depths of the next night, Corvai’s eyes slid open. He blinked blearily into the dark, scabbed lips twitching as if searching for something to say.

A candle appeared, flickering dimly on a table in the room. Corvai winced and turned his head, squinting through the sharp shadows, and he _smiled_. He smiled, and Azram’s forsaken heart twisted in his chest. “Ram?” His voice was parched and scratchy but unmistakably his.

“Who else would it be?” he asked, intending to cut, but Corvai’s look of naked relief was too much for him to handle. “Though, to be fair, you were causing quite the commotion. I felt it from the far side of the world. I suppose you’re quite lucky I’m the only demon who came to investigate.”

Corvai’s eyes — which rarely bothered to blink — slid closed. “Mmh,” he hummed. “Lucky’s my middle name.”

Azram scoffed, “What would you need a third name for?”

Corvai’s smile widened and a cut on his lip split open. A trickle of golden blood gleamed in the low light. “Dunno,” he admitted. 

He tried to shrug and grunted in pain, head tipped back onto the bed as his brow furrowed. Corvai’s breath caught again, and he hissed a shaky inhale through his teeth. The power under his skin pulsed.

Azram frowned. “And what is that doing, precisely?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Worried isn’t the word,” Azram informed him. “I was going to try to heal you, but that never went away.” Perhaps his voice was a little sharp. “It _is_ yours, isn’t it?”

With far too much amusement, Corvai asked, “Who else would it be, eh?”

Azram swallowed with a click of his throat, keenly aware of the scars along his own body and the symbol that had been branded again and again between his shoulder blades. “I’m certain that I don’t know what you angels get up to.”

Corvai laughed weakly. The sound faded quickly, swallowed by the noises of the inn around them. His chest rose and fell in an uneven shudder. Then, softly, “S’keepin’ me together. Bodies are—” He lifted a hand in a vague wave before it fell limply back to the bed. Corvai jolted, exhaling sharply before he composed himself. “Lotta the same elements, yeah?”

“The same as what?”

“Stars,” he breathed. “Bunch of the same stuff. All th’ same…” He lifted a finger this time rather than his whole hand, waving it in a circle. “Same… Materials. Bricks.”

Azram was tempted to keep him talking, to play at being obtuse, but the Corvai’s vulnerability was too raw, too uncomfortable to witness. “You clever thing. You can’t heal yourself, but you can keep from being discorporated.”

Corvai chuckled bleakly. “Think I’d rather be able to heal.”

“I can.” Quickly, “Not all the way, of course. I don’t think either of us want you walking around radiating demonic energy.”

“You’re sure about that?” Corvai cracked a golden eye open with an attempted smirk.

Azram elected to ignore him. “But it would be enough to keep you from discorporating. More of your energy could go towards recovery.”

Corvai nodded but didn’t answer for long moments. His eyes eventually drifted closed again, and the room was filled with the sound of habitual breathing. It hitched. “Don’ want you to get in trouble.”

“My dear,” he said, matter-of-fact, “I’m a demon. They expect me to get into trouble.”

“With an angel?”

Without hesitation, he murmured. “I took you from your recovery bed and whisked you away to an unknown location. I have you utterly at my mercy. It would be a shame if I were to lose such an advantage simply because your weakened body gave out.”

Corvai’s breathing caught, and Azram felt a familiar wave of emotion wash over him like the rising tide. There had been moments strewn together across their long and sordid history, brief flashes of something Azram had never dared to name. Azram was overfamiliar with the facets of desire, with the endless permutations and possibilities. He knew Corvai’s well: to understand, to protect, to rebel. But in all their years, Azram had never allowed himself to examine this beyond a surface glance.

That he could feel such desire _now_, when he was in such pain, when he was one misstep away from discorporating — Azram became aware of how deep the roots, how strong it must be despite all attempts to kill it, and how dangerous it was for them both that it persisted.

Demonic instinct told Azram to dig into the sin, to peel apart the vile desire to its base components and use it against the weakened soul before him.

He could think of nothing he wanted less.

“Angel,” he said, pulling Corvai’s attention back to this moment, to the concrete offer being made as opposed to the ephemeral whims of Corvai’s imagination. “Can you get rid of the magic holding you together?”

Corvai turned his head slightly away from Azram. It exposed the line of his fragile neck, and Azram watched his Adam’s apple bob with a thick swallow. “I— Ram it’s—”

Patiently, he prompted, “Yes?”

Corvai’s brow pinched, and his hands curled weakly into fists where they lay on the bed. Gold seeped through his fingers, and his palms left stains in their wake. “I can’t discorporate. It’s— Last time, I— I got off with a warning, but. But this soon? I’ll— It’ll be a _century_. Or more. They’ll make me wait; they’ll—”

“In Heaven.” He tried not to sound angry. How many centuries had he sat at Lucifer’s feet, his beloved pet, because Corvai had destroyed his body? And now, when Azram was offering to _help_, those consequences suddenly seemed to matter?

Corvai flinched. “Yeah,” he said miserably. “In Heaven. So. I can’t. I— I _can’t_—”

Azram sneered for the briefest moment, rage burning like bile in his throat before clarity struck with such sudden force that it stunned him into silence.

Corvai was _begging_. He clearly had enough energy to expend in order to remain conscious — if he wanted, he could have used that to defend himself, to throw up walls or push Azram away. It would likely take next to nothing for Corvai to consecrate the entirety of the inn, making it a haven for him against any demonic interference. He could spend as long as he needed to slowly returning back to normal, safely sheltered away and sleeping.

Instead, he was asking for Azram’s mercy and consideration. He was asking for cooperation, for _help_.

He was afraid, and he was reaching out.

Azram tsked and slowly pushed himself out of his chair. “Well, then.” The floor creaked under his weight as he crossed the few steps between them. As he stood over the bed, Corvai’s eyes opened again, staring up at him. When the light from the candle caught them just right, his eyes almost seemed to glow. The weight of Corvai’s trust felt immeasurably heavy, impossible to carry. As luck would have it, Azram had spent thousands of years carrying more than any being should have been able to. “If you’re going to be so insistent, I suppose we’ll have to wait until you aren’t on death’s doorstep.”

Corvai sighed shakily and nodded. Azram’s lips curled in a slow smile. “But.”

“But?”

“I’m not going to simply sit here and watch you suffer. If you want me to stay, you have to let me numb you to the pain.”

It was a dangerous offer. If Azram truly wanted to hurt him, it would start here, asking for permission, eroding the innate sense of enmity that existed in their dichotomous states. Inviting the use of infernal power was a boundary no angel should willingly cross.

The condition he’d added muddied the waters. If Heaven probed at this moment, they would see Corvai, vulnerable and in pain, forced to accept help from an enemy or languish alone. If Hell pried through his own memories, they’d see a demon tempting an angel, a touch of corruption willingly accepted.

Of course Corvai nodded. Of course he breathed, “I accept,” as if Azram had proposed a proper demonic deal.

Azram leaned his thigh against the bed, his fingers alighting so, so gently on the inside of Corvai’s wrist. As he had cleaned out Corvai’s wounds, Azram’s power wound around Corvai’s body before sinking just beneath the skin. For a moment, he could map the entirety of Corvai’s being by the pain it was in. He could feel it throbbing with every heartbeat, a symphony of intense agony. He became aware of the deeper, internal injuries that he couldn’t touch, rebuffed as he was by the miracle holding Corvai together.

It was too much for a body to bear. It was why no humans with these sorts of injuries had survived.

At first, he had wanted to numb Corvai’s nerves, but the idea of tampering with his body became less palatable as the minutes passed. As unpleasant as it was, Azram knew all-too well that pain could be grounding. Without it, in his current state, Corvai might panic. It might make his remarkable grip on his powers slip, and he’d end up back in the angelic corporation queue.

Instead, Sloth bled between them, wrapping around Corvai like a heavy blanket. It made the pain feel distant and negligible.

“S’not what I expected,” Corvai slurred as Azram pulled back to himself.

“Are you complaining?”

“Nah. Too tired.”

“Sloth will do that,” he said flatly as Corvai scoffed and smiled. “Rest, then. I’ll be here when you wake.”

Corvai did.

* * *

Corvai slept like the dead. He buried himself deep in unconsciousness for days at a time. How vulnerable he looked, how fragile especially with the kaleidoscope of injuries on his body. Azram loathed it. Hated it, really. His fingers twitched, palms itching with a desire to mend that felt startlingly proprietary.

Corvai wasn’t _meant_ to look so small or so pale. He wasn’t meant to be in such intense pain that he had to be unconscious to escape it. Corvai had always been a hundred-thousand things that he shouldn’t, but these nagged at Azram at all hours, every time he so much as glanced at the bed. Fury twisted in his chest, seething even as he marked the minute improvements of Corvai’s superficial injures.

Azram kept his hands busy instead. He couldn’t use miracles to heal him but he could prepare soaks for Corvai’s burns and change them out in precise, measured intervals. He roused him once to ask about stitching his cuts, and Corvai blearily nodded. He’d watched with unblinking eyes as Azram threaded the wounds closed before succumbing to sleep again. Azram checked them regularly to ensure they didn’t open.

When he had nothing else to do, he recited old epics, pulling ancient stories from the depths of his memory. His voice filled the room with an even cadence save for numerous digressions wherein he picked at historical inaccuracies. “They call it Babel now, you know,” he said with a derisive sniff, and he imagined that Corvai smiled.

If nothing else, talking ought to remind Corvai that he wasn’t alone. If he ever started to wake, he would hear Azram speaking, and he would know that he hadn’t been abandoned.

It kept his mind from dwelling so intently on the body in the bed, the extent of the injuries he couldn’t see. He never once for any amount of time forgot that one of Corvai’s six wings had been broken when he’d last seen it. It would need to be seen to and taken care of. If their prior encounter had been any indication, Corvai wouldn’t want to let him.

One day, clay-red hair began to grow, sweeping low across Corvai’s brow after a matter of hours. “You vain thing,” he murmured accusingly, but Corvai didn’t wake.

* * *

Azram was hard at work with another chore he’d invented for himself when he became acutely aware that he was being watched. He felt the attention settle on his shoulders, something unpleasant prickling at the back of his mind. For a long, dreadful moment, his body froze, a soundless snarl shaping on his lips. His eyes cut up to the closed door then to the bed to see Corvai watching him steadily. His eyes were sunken and sockets bruised. His breath rattled in his chest only once before he gave up on it entirely.

“Azram,” he said, and it sounded desperate, ragged, and lonely.

Azram knew what it was to be helpless. He had spent so long suffering at the whims of others. He had been stripped of all autonomy, little more than a toy, a tool to be used then shelved until he was demanded again. In a sad, sick way, he craved the direction, the utter certainty that came with following someone else’s will. As much as he despised it, he hated this more: feeling uncertain and torn.

It would be kinder, he reasoned, to send Corvai back to Heaven than to leave him suffering like this. It would solidify their supposed adversarial relationship with their respective factions, and Corvai wouldn’t be in pain. Surely, he was wrong about it being a century. He had always been overly dramatic and prone to exaggerating.

Perhaps, if Corvai were angry with him again, he wouldn’t feel so flayed apart and ripped open, millennia of scar tissue peeled aside to expose some raw, bleeding part of him that should have died a long, long time ago.

Azram did not helplessly drift into Corvai’s orbit so much as he stepped deliberately into his gravity, letting it pull him across the steps between them until he was perched gingerly on the edge of the bed.

“Think I went a bit overboard.”

“You think?”

Corvai attempted a sheepish smile, but it faded fast as he hissed through his teeth. “I c’n feel myself bleeding. Somewhere deep. I can’t—” He sneered, exposing his fangs, “I can’t heal it myself.”

“The longer it sits there bleeding, the more likely you are to discorporate the moment you let go.”

“Yeah.” He sagged in the bed, wincing with another pained hiss.

“So,” Azram ventured after a long moment. “I’ll tend to that first. Then, I can get the deepest burns. The rest will take time, but they should be manageable.” Corvai said nothing, glancing away. A bare, injured arm lay across his midsection, fingers curling against his skin. “Perhaps if we stretch it out over a few days, it won’t be as evident that a demon did the healing. I could take care of the rest of them over a longer period.”

“No.”

Azram blinked slowly. “Very well. Why?”

“If— if they all miraculously vanish, Heaven’ll have questions. They’ll—” He gritted his teeth, huffing out irately. “They have a record of my miracles. They’ll _know_ it wasn’t me.”

A frown tugged on his lips. “I suppose one can’t accept miraculous happenstance when one is in charge of bestowing miracles.”

“That’s it,” Corvai agreed. “S’exactly it.” His arm tightened where it lay over his abdomen, a snarl twisting on his lips. “An’ I— it’s not like I can go back before my review and ask for help. G—” He glared momentarily upward then rolled his eyes, seething, “_Someone-Up-There_ forbid.”

“They wouldn’t help you?”

“Not after last time. They think I— I just _threw_ that body away.”

Azram observed calmly, “You did, rather.”

“S’pose I should’ve just let Caligula do anything he wanted, then!”

“You hardly stopped him, did you? All those people still died, he still got his spectacle—”

“But I wasn’t a part of it!” Corvai snarled, baring his fangs before pain lanced sharply through him. He curled tightly around his midsection with a grunt, hair tumbling in thick curtains between his face and the outside world. “Fuck, _fuck_.”

Azram felt the power in him waver, tasted the angelic suffering sharp and sweet on his tongue. He reached out, fingers alighting on Corvai’s elbow. “Allow me.”

The moment Corvai’s miracle disappeared, Azram flooded his body with demonic power, searching the interior as thoroughly as he had the surface layers. He found the bruised and bleeding organs and sewed them neatly up. He found broken bones and nudged them gently back into alignment before sealing them together. When there was resistance, he stubbornly pushed, bullheaded and determined until something gave way, opening a path for him to correct what had gone grievously wrong.

He could hear the start of Corvai’s ragged breaths in his ear, could feel him shaking as he curled tighter around the worst of his injuries. His bony shoulders wrenched, wings itching to burst free, to send him as far away as he could get from the source of this pain. Yet, he held admirably still, throat closing around a thin, reedy whine.

He felt the heat of Corvai’s burns, but he didn’t dare to do more than soothe the lowest layer of skin as he pulled back into himself.

“_Fuck_,” Corvai gasped in a way that sounded terribly close to a sob.

Without thinking, Azram reached up, brushing the hair back behind Corvai’s ear. Corvai glanced up at him from the soft shadows, tentative. A pattern of scales glistened across his sharp cheekbones, and his pupils had narrowed to slits. He took a deep breath and then another, and Azram felt the worst of the fear and pain fade to nothing.

“There; isn’t that better.”

Corvai’s eyes narrowed. “Y’did that on purpose. Riling me up so I’d slip.”

He hadn’t. Strangely, it hadn’t even occurred to him. “Perhaps. It worked out, didn’t it?”

Corvai laughed weakly, shuddering, “Damn you.”

“Oh, my dear, I’m afraid you’re a bit late for that.” He allowed his hand to fall away and tried not to think about how Corvai’s gaze followed it.

* * *

Azram didn’t know how to broach the difficult subject of Corvai’s wings. 

Day by day, they argued about whether there was a point in applying human treatments to a divine body — an argument Azram was winning, if the frequency of the applications of his soaks was any indication. They argued about the Roman Empire and a restaurant they’d tried in Jerusalem and everything else under the sun without hesitation.

But in the background of every conversation, Azram couldn’t stop thinking about Corvai’s missing feathers, about the bone sticking through the skin of his broken wing. He couldn’t stop himself from remembering how Corvai had wrenched away the second he had so much as touched them.

He was keenly aware of Corvai’s growing impatience. As the worst of his wounds healed to manageable levels, he grew restless, pacing often and looking towards the door. The pretense of captivity had already worn dangerously thin, but the moment Corvai could simply leave without impediment, it would vanish entirely. He got so far as touching his fingers to the door, nails scraping over the woodgrain before he’d turned back around, long legs carrying him to the far side of their shared cage in several hurried steps.

The moment Corvai left, Azram would lose the chance to heal them at all. He liked to think that Corvai wasn’t stupid enough to leave himself injured. Bodily wounds were one thing, but surely he could find another Seraph who would take care of a wounded wing. But… He keenly remembered how Corvai spoke of Heaven.

Corvai hadn’t been afraid at the Ark or standing on top of the tower in Babilla. He had faced the fire in Alexandria without flinching, and he had made a deal with a demon in Bethlehem without a moment’s hesitation. His risks were bold, but they were also calculated, careful.

He might bear the pain, hide his broken wing, and try to continue without healing it until it was far too late.

Azram couldn’t let him.

“Angel,” he ventured after a long, aggravating day for them both. “I need to see your wings.”

Corvai hunched forward instinctively then tried to disguise it with an artful slouch. He pulled his legs up onto the bed with him, a knee curled against his chest while the other lay against the mattress, heel dug into the bulk. Azram raised an eyebrow, eyes sweeping over the defensive posture and the petulant glare from behind strands of red hair.

“Before you leave, dear,” he said firmly. “One of them was broken, and I know others had injuries that might become infected.”

“And if I say no?” Corvai demanded in a low voice.

“Why would you?” He leaned back in his own seat, an ankle tipped over the opposite knee as he folded his hands on top of his stomach. “What good does that do you?” When Corvai didn’t answer, Azram pressed. “What have I done to indicate that you are anything but safe here?”

“S’not like that. Wings’re different. Could follow you to Hell and back and not want you to touch them.”

“Your wings are like any other part of your body. Though they’re tied to your celestial form, they can still be injured, and those injuries can have lasting consequences.” He grimaced. “Even beyond your corporal form.”

“Come off it.”

“I’m being quite serious. You know I am.”

Corvai laughed desperately, “Do I?”

Azram gave a slow, deliberate blink. He tipped his head back with a sigh, and with a thunderous clap, his own wings manifested. A shiver wracked up his spine as he became dreadfully aware of the imbalance, how the left stretched open so wide that it could hardly fit in the room while the right barely twitched open, shriveled and useless. An old ache throbbed from the wrist down to the root of it.

Corvai’s eyes, predictably, strayed to the weak wing before he turned his wide eyes resolutely to Azram’s face.

“Old war wound?” Corvai ventured, probing with deliberate feigned disinterest. As always, there was something hungry in his eyes, a furious desire for knowledge and understanding that outweighed any and all potential risks.

How easy it would be to lie to him. Corvai still believed that he had Fallen with the rest of the demons before the First War, that he had fought on Hell’s side as part of a rebellion against God and Heaven. Azram couldn’t personally remember aiming for a demon’s wings when he had served as a Cherub in Their army, but it was hardly a stretch of the imagination. Wings were delicate and fragile; injuring them would make for a distracted enemy, and there had been angels and demons on both sides desperate to gain the upper hand through any means necessary.

It made for a good story, and it would solidify Corvai’s extant distrust of Heaven.

A wise demon would use that misconception to their advantage, and Azram was, generally, a wise demon.

But.

For all that he could gain through deception, he didn’t _want_ to.

“I’m afraid not. Falling is— it’s existential, more than anything, but there _is_ a physical element as one is, you know, deposited in Hell.” He smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “My wing broke when I Fell. It was… my word, several decades before anyone tried to heal it.” Sometime in the dark, lonely years, a demon had grabbed it, had pushed their power into it, laughing with delighted cruelty as the feathers caught flame instead of healing. It was hardly the first time someone had targeted his weakened limb, and it certainly hadn’t been the last.

“You didn’t?”

Azram shrugged. He hadn’t had power, caught in a state between demon and angel, discarded but not yet accepted into the Legions of Hell. He caught a hint of pity in Corvai’s eyes, and that was enough to deter him from further truths. “I was rather busy.”

Corvai swallowed thickly. His slim fingers gnarled around the knee resting against his chest. Azram could feel that burning need to know moments before Corvai spoke. “How’d it— What was it? That made you—?”

“How does anyone reach the end of a supposedly-infinite patience and love?” Azram couldn’t keep the bitterness from his tone. “How does anyone rebel against Someone all-knowing, Someone who made them to begin with?” He lifted a hand, waving it vaguely. “I suppose I wasn’t made to be a very good angel. So They made me a demon instead.”

Corvai’s brow wrinkled, eyes narrowed slightly in contemplation. There was an old anger simmering just under the surface, more questions crowding his tongue than he dared to voice. It was just as well — Azram didn’t intend to tell him anything more. He’d used enough of the truth to demonstrate its edge. There was no need to be gratuitous in its application.

Instead, he pressed: “I do mean it, you know. I don’t intend to let you leave before you let me see to them.”

“You couldn’t stop me if I wanted to leave.”

Azram’s smile ticked wider. “Ah, but that’s the question, isn’t it — do you _want_ to? You’ve had ample opportunity now. Thousands of years, in fact, yet here we are.”

“S’not my fault you keep coming back.”

Easily and without hesitation, he said, “Of course it is. If you _really_ wanted, you could destroy me.”

“So could you,” Corvai said, scrambling for a more equal footing. “Destroy me, that is.”

“Of course. And yet.” He gestured towards the room, towards the open air between them.

Corvai scooted to the edge of the bed, and his wings boomed into the room. Azram took note of them quickly — only one had a visible bone, but multiple others were subtly misaligned in a way that indicated minor breaks. Feathers were missing from all of them though some had already begun to regrow. They fluttered around Corvai, twitching under the weight of Azram’s gaze. It was almost as though they were flinching from him.

Azram smothered the look of smug satisfaction before it could take over his face, pushing himself up from the chair to cross the room. Corvai craned his head up, following Azram with his eyes as he stepped close. Corvai attempted to fold his wings, hissing in pain as the movement jostled the multiple breaks.

“I won’t linger,” he promised. “But you must hold still. Do you think you can manage?”

“What would you do if I couldn’t?” Corvai asked, visibly trying not to wince.

Azram smiled. “I’d make you. One way or another.”

There it was again, the edge of Lust that Azram had spent so long ignoring. It simmered between them, and Corvai’s wings reflexively opened wider. A whimper choked in his throat.

“Ready?”

“Yeah,” Corvai breathed.

Azram’s infernal power spread out, burying itself in the quiver of Corvai’s wings. He moved slowly, acclimating Corvai to the feeling while searching for every minor injury. Beneath the coverts and skin, there were an ample number of bruises aching with every movement, a dull throb in comparison to the sharp sting of the broken bones. His own wings panged in sympathy when he felt the stab of the exposed bone with every passing moment. Even when he was holding purposefully still, it _hurt_ beyond measure, and Corvai’s hands fisted in the linen sheet as Azram turned his unwavering, detail-oriented mind to the broken wing.

Slowly, he nudged Corvai’s bones back into position, creating space for the exposed bone to slide back into the skin. Corvai’s shoulders shuddered, an inhuman noise shaking through the walls of the inn. There was some vague relief when the bone was back inside his wing, but the sharp ache remained as Azram gathered the shattered edges and fit them together, pulling shards into the incomplete puzzle until he’d recreated an almost perfectly smooth radius. 

As he had when Corvai was asleep, he pushed out the dirt and debris, leaving the wounds clean and throbbing in agonizing harmony.

“One more,” he said, folding his hands in front of him. He could be kind — merciful, even, when the mood struck — but even kindness could have the edge of cruelty. His power rippled across the length of Corvai’s wings, pulsing unnervingly outward before he contracted it all in a snap. Bones mended and bruises disappeared. Feathers that had been regrowing crooked suddenly set themselves straight, and pain arced through every single feather of his wings.

Corvai’s hands ripped through the linen sheet and the mattress. They flew up, grabbing Azram’s hands where they lay clasped together, and Corvai bowed his head, brow brushing along Azram’s knuckles as he bit out, “You _bastard_.”

Immediately, Azram’s touch turned soothing, cool as he gently smoothed across the neat lines of Corvai’s wings. He eased the pain bit by bit until Corvai’s wings were all-but arching into his attention, tilting slightly in an attempt to lead him until Azram pulled slowly away. Corvai’s hands fell away, and his wings stretched as far as the room would let them before they folded behind him and disappeared. “Should I say thank you?”

“Best not,” Azram reminded as he folded his own wings away. “Remember, you’re meant to have been a captive if anyone asks.”

“Right. Yeah.” Corvai swallowed thickly, watching Azram until he seemed to become aware himself of how he was staring. His eyes fell away, staring at a random corner until Azram wondered if he was actually seeing something there. “Then…”

“Then?”

“S’hardly convincing, is it?” Corvai asked, his voice tight. “You kept me imprisoned, sure. Then, what? Took care of me? They’ll never believe that.”

“I tempted you to doubt Heaven,” Azram said bluntly. “I failed.” Then, deliberately wheedling, he asked, “Or did I? Hm? After all,” he tutted with a smirk, “you let me touch your _wings_—”

He didn’t get farther than that.

In an instant, in a blink, in a _heartbeat_, Corvai had crossed the distance between them, swallowing whatever else he might have said in a searing, desperate kiss. His fingers dug into the nape of Azram’s neck and shoulder, pulling him closer until Azram could feel the heat between their bodies as tangibly as the Lust that seemed to thicken the air, sweet and heady.

Corvai pulled back, breathing almost into Azram’s mouth as his eyes flicked wildly over his face. “S’that—? S’that okay? I—”

“Of course,” he murmured, dropping his head to nose under Corvai’s jaw. He smiled wickedly as Corvai’s head tipped back, exposing the vulnerable length of his throat. “Of _course_ it is.”

He didn’t know what had broken the dam, what exactly had made Corvai act after thousands of years of denial. He had been successfully suppressing his desire for so long, and they had both known better. But if Corvai was going to indulge, who on Earth was Azram to stop him?

This, he knew how to do. He knew how to tease Corvai’s skin with his teeth, his hands moving with rough confidence over the lean body pressed against his own. His fingers skimmed under Corvai’s loose tunic, hitching the cloth up as he trailed his fingers over the knobs of his spine. The lingering burns and cuts he treated with as much care as he could spare, sometimes pressing just enough to make Corvai feel, to make him aware of his own body, to make him feel alive.

Corvai groaned, guttural in his throat before he scrambled with unraveling the length of Azram’s toga, pushing it from his shoulders to expose the tunic beneath. Upon seeing the second layer of clothing, Corvai snarled and, without hesitation, clicked his fingers, leaving them both bare.

It was clear, immediately, that he hadn’t thought it through. His frantic pace stuttered to a halt, eyes drinking in the expanse of Azram’s exposed skin, pale and marked as it was in ragged tears from Lucifer’s sharp scales. Corvai’s hands shook, tentatively reaching out until his fingers were tracing the groove left along one bicep then following the muscle of it up to Azram’s shoulder.

Corvai looked at him with nothing short of worshipful reverence. It settled heavily into Azram’s stomach, desirous and all-consuming.

Azram stepped closer, a hand settling on Corvai’s bare hip while the other carded a tad forcefully through his hair. “I will, at some point, have to teach you patience,” he promised in a low murmur. His fingers wrapped in Corvai’s red waves, pulling his head back with a sharp tug that ripped a moan from Corvai’s throat.

Corvai’s hands cupped Azram’s face, hardly daring to wander even as he took a step back towards the bed. First one, then another, and all too soon, they were a tangle of limbs, skin sliding against skin. Corvai’s fervent touch remained so tentative, so soft. As if Corvai could possibly break him.

“Touch me,” Azram breathed into Corvai’s ear, teeth scraping over the shell of it. “Anywhere. Everywhere. No need to be shy.” He nudged Corvai onto his back.

“_Christ_, Ram—” Corvai whined, and the noise pitched higher as Azram threw a plush thigh over Corvai’s legs, bringing their hips into line. Corvai hadn’t yet made an Effort of his own, but he bucked into the slow roll of Azram’s hips without it, cursing under his breath. One of Corvai’s hands finally skimmed to Azram’s waist, grasping at a dewy roll of skin and pulling him rather forcefully down until their hips met again. Azram’s own Effort throbbed, his hard cock dragging across Corvai’s skin before his own hips rutted forward, rubbing against the blank canvas of Corvai’s body with a needy whine of his own.

Corvai’s other hand curled along Azram’s jaw, pulling him into another heated kiss as Corvai arched shamelessly against him.

Perhaps with more amusement than the situation warranted, Azram asked, “Is this your first time, angel?”

And perhaps more indignant than he intended, Corvai squawked, “No! Course it isn’t!”

“Then,” he purred, his fingers twining between Corvai’s where they lay on his face, leading them down between the tight press of their bodies, and wrapping Corvai’s long fingers around his dick, “_touch_ me.”

Corvai’s face flushed as red as his hair, and he _did_. But rather than stroking him properly, teasing him, pulling him closer to the edge of orgasm, it was gentle, exploratory. His fingers soothed over Azram’s foreskin and flitted over his slit. He slowly led Azram to sprawl on his back, eyes hungrily raking over his bare body as he took Azram’s cock in hand again. He a gentle squeeze before he slowly ground the palm of his other hand against the head of his dick until Azram’s hips jerked. Precum wet Corvai’s fingers, and Azram watched as he pulled them quickly up to his lips, tongue laving the taste of Azram from them.

“How do you want me?” he asked, heat flushing through him, a tremble shaking through his entire body. It hadn’t been long since the last time he’d been in Hell, but it seemed so distant, so _different_. His legs sprawled instinctively apart. “I can use any Effort; I don’t mind.”

“Whatever you want,” Corvai said, pupils widening to darken his eyes. “Fuck, Ram, that’s— Please,” he breathed almost feverishly, soothing his hands along Azram’s thighs before he dropped between them, nose pressing into the soft skin, fangs scraping just so over his skin though he never followed through on the implicit threat.

Azram’s Effort slowly shrank, the skin beneath his legs splitting open into a wet slit. As labia still formed, Corvai lunged for his cunt, mouth moving in a fervent kiss over his mound before his clever tongue slid _up_, pressing in a desperate grind against Azram’s clit.

This was easier. If they had to wait for Corvai to stretch him out, Armageddon might get here first.

“Oh,” he gasped, legs falling open further. His heels dug into the bed as his hips rolled, bringing him closer to orgasm without allowing himself to tip over. “Oh, you have to stop, or I’ll— I won’t _last_—”

Corvai abruptly pulled away and propped his wet chin on Azram’s stomach, golden eyes glazed in a way that looked distinctly drunk. Azram felt the throb of denial deep in his body as his cunt clutched on nothing, and he hiked his hips just a tad, trying to lead Corvai back to touching him.

When subtlety failed, Azram flipped them with a thought, pressing Corvai back into the bed. He had finally made an Effort of his own, lean but long, and he filled out Azram’s hand nicely as he stroked him from root to tip. Corvai writhed, hands clutching at the headboard when he couldn’t reach Azram, breaths heavy in his chest. Azram heard the wood creak under his frantic pulls, and he decided to take some form of mercy on the poor thing, sliding up until he could press the head of Corvai’s cock to his folds.

At first, he simply rocked his hips, sighing as Corvai slid through his lips. If he were feeling more daring, he might continue to do this, grinding his clit against Corvai’s cock, bringing himself to orgasm before allowing Corvai to sink inside. But Corvai was still holding back, still restraining from the carnal act he desired. Teasing had a time and place. It wasn’t now, when Azram needed to feel full, when he wanted Corvai’s body to buck into him with all the force Corvai was trying not to use.

Corvai’s cock slid into him without hesitation, pressing deep as he bottomed out inside Azram. At first, Azram was content to clutch around him, to revel in the knowledge that he _had_ him. Regardless of what came next, regardless of Armageddon and the Great War and horrible, inevitable _eternity_, he’d had Corvai in him, beneath him, mewling weakly as his hips flexed, as he tried to deny his body’s animal instincts, as he denied his own desires that had bloomed into this desperate Lust.

“More,” Azram whined, rising up with his knees, his thighs flexing before he sank down on Corvai’s cock again. “Come on, angel. I can take it.” He gently grabbed Corvai’s hands, uncurling the dear fingers from where they had all-but gnarled around the wooden headboard. He led them to his hips, sighing pleasantly as Corvai’s fingers dug into his flesh. “Take me. Please— Satan, I _want_—”

Memories stirred unbidden. His body had nowhere to go, forced to open around the thick intrusion of the Devil’s cock. His hands tangled in the chains over his head, and Lucifer’s clever fingers mercilessly worked his clit, bringing him to two shrieking orgasms in a row, and then— _then he had moved_, a hand pressed on Azram’s chest, pulling him down, holding him in place as his hips pumped with bruising strength into his body which had no option but to take, to cum, to be wrenched apart at a molecular level and be remade for this.

He had been made for this.

Azram’s hips stuttered, his head tipped back before it shuddered forward, before he was rutting desperately against Corvai. Words fell in a delirious rush from his lips. “Fuck me. _Fuck_ me, angel. Please— _take me_, use me. Fuck me like it could kill you. Fuck the _life_ out of me, please, _please_—”

And, suddenly, there was nothing. Azram’s body clutched uselessly around empty air, and he felt dizzily empty. Strangely, achingly abandoned.

“I can take more,” he breathed, head bowed against the body beneath him. “It’s fine, angel. It’s fine—”

“Azram,” Corvai said, shaking hands planted firmly on his shoulders. His eyes shone with unshed tears. “It’s not fine. It’sss— It’s _not_. Sso. Sstop.”

Azram laughed. What other option was there? Slight and disbelieving, he insisted, “It’s just _Lust_, Corvai. It’s, it’s honestly nothing I haven’t experienced before.”

Corvai scrambled out of the bed, clothing himself with a hasty snap. He paced a circuit of the room, to the door and back, restless energy shaking through his hands as they combed back wildly through his hair.

Azram lay on the bed, his chin propped on his hand as he watched Corvai pace. “My dear, Hell perfected every carnal act. We have an entire Kingdom dedicated to Lust — I’m sure you can imagine what they get up to.”

“It’s not _Lust_, Azram,” Corvai snapped, turning sharply on his heel. “It wasn’t. Not to me.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my partner [Parker](https://transfemmbeatrice.tumblr.com/) for all that they've done both in developing this AU/fic and in enabling me to write it.
> 
> Come talk to me on [tumblr](https://zaxal.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/zaxalrie)!


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